Risky Indian space mission makes history as first to land in Moon’s polar regions

By Ben Hollingum
Published
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Yesterday afternoon, people from across India and beyond tuned in to watch a feed showing a group of people sitting in nervous silence in a windowless room in Bengaluru. Around them, hundreds of computer monitors and projection screens showed a bewildering array of numbers and charts while an announcer called out things like "power descent" and "fine braking".  

The people at the centre of attention for these tense minutes were the engineers and scientists of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), whose robotic Moon probe Chandrayaan-3 was entering the most difficult and dangerous stage of its mission.  

first lunar polar mission taking off

Just after 6 p.m., local time, the room suddenly erupted into frenzied cheers as Chandrayaan-3's 26-kg Vikram lander sent confirmation of its safe touchdown. Although the precise location of its landing site has not yet been confirmed, it is likely around 69.4 degrees south between the craters Manzinus C and Simpelius N. 

This is the most southerly landing site of any Moon mission, and the first to land in one the Moon's polar regions (more than 66 degrees latitude from the equator). 

A polar landing is significant because this region represents a totally different environment to the flat plans of the lunar equator. At the poles, the terrain is rugged and mountainous, with peaks that are bathed in sunlight for months at a time and deep craters that have not seen the sun in billions of years.  

Furthermore, lunar satellites such as NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or the ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 have detected traces of water ice in depths of those dark craters – a resource that would be invaluable for planetary researchers and future astronauts. 

It's also significant because landing a probe at the poles is really hard. The six-for-six landing successes of the Apollo program often lead people to think that landing on the Moon is easy, or at least a problem that humans have definitively solved. 

This is not the case. Of the 50 or so landers that have been sent to the Moon, only 23 have survived their descent to the surface. The failures aren't only restricted to the early days of space exploration either; there have been eight landing attempts in the 21st century so far, and only four successes. 

To reach the surface intact, Vikram had to perform hundreds of precisely timed and calculated manoeuvres fully autonomously, adjusting its pre-programmed flight plan to the real-world conditions it encountered in its descent. The communications delay between the Earth and Moon is around 2.5 seconds, making remote control of these split-second adjustments impossible.  

Having touched down safely, the Vikram lander is expected to deploy a small wheeled rover (called Pragyan) and spend two weeks (one lunar day) exploring its landing site. In addition to multiple cameras, the two vehicles carry seismometers, temperature probes and spectrometers to measure the chemical composition of the soil.  

The mission is planned to last for two weeks (one lunar day), but it is possible that it could last longer if the spacecraft's systems survive two weeks of cold darkness without power. The Chandrayaan-3 orbiter will remain operational for around six months. 

first lunar polar mission rocket

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