India becomes first country to land on the moon’s south pole
Jack Birle
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India became the first country to land a robotic moon lander on the south pole of the moon on Wednesday, days after a Russian spacecraft crashed into the lunar surface.
The Indian Space Research Organization confirmed at 8:34 a.m. EDT that Chandrayaan-3 had “successfully soft-landed” on the south pole of the moon.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was a “historic day for India’s space sector” and congratulated the space agency for its “remarkable success” with the lunar landing in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Chandrayaan-3, an unmanned probe, was launched on July 14 and began the last phase of its mission last week when it successfully separated from its propulsion module. The successful landing comes four years after the Chandrayaan-2 mission crashed into the moon.
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The Wednesday soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 came days after Russia’s Luna-25 crashed into the south pole of the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Russia and India had been racing to get to the south pole of the moon with dueling missions
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The United States, the first and only country to land a man on the lunar surface, is slated to return to the moon in 2024 with the Artemis II mission, and a moon landing is set for 2025 with the Artemis III mission.
Only four countries, the U.S., the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the People’s Republic of China, and India, have landed spacecraft on the lunar surface.