If successful, the latest mission would make India only the fourth country to achieve the complicated feat, behind the United States, the former Soviet Union and China. The mission is India’s second attempt to land at the lunar south pole after Chandrayaan-2 crashed into the moon in September 2019. Meanwhile, Chandrayaan-3, which includes a lander, rover and propulsion module, lifted off on July 14 and entered lunar orbit last weekend. Initially, Roscosmos and the European Space Agency planned to partner on Luna 25, as well as Luna 26, Luna 27 and the ExoMars rover.īut that partnership ceased in April 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ESA Council moved to “ discontinue cooperative activities with Russia.” The four-legged lander includes landing rockets, propellant tanks, solar panels, computers and a robotic arm equipped with a scoop to collect lunar samples, as well as a suite of instruments to study the samples and exosphere, according to NASA. NASA’s ‘shout’ restores communication with Voyager 2 Luna 25, also called the Luna-Glob-Lander, will study the composition of the moon’s polar soil and the plasma and dust contained in the very thin lunar exosphere, or the moon’s scant atmosphere, for one year. But Roscomos said the two missions are not expected to cause a problem for each other because their specific landing zones differ, Reuters reported. Luna 25 and India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, which launched in mid-July, are both expected to land at the lunar south pole on August 23, and it’s a race to see which country will land first, according to Reuters. Russia’s last lunar lander, Luna 24, landed on the moon on August 18, 1976. The spacecraft is expected to first enter an orbit around Earth before transferring to a lunar orbit and ultimately descending to the surface of the moon. India’s Chandrayaan-3 enters lunar orbit in step closer to moon rover soft landing Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit, launches from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on July 14, 2023.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |