India’s boldly gone where no other country has — landing a spacecraft, the Chandrayaan-3, on the moon’s south pole, and becoming only the 4th nation to achieve lunar success.
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s mission control erupted in cheers as the unmanned Chyandrayaan-3 softly touched down on the moon’s south pole Wednesday morning … marking a successful end to a more than month-long mission.
India’s now earned its Moon Card, along with the U.S., Russia and China — although, only America’s landed manned missions there.
One thing the ISRO has on just about every other lunar mission is cost, ’cause they really did it on the cheap. India’s budget for the entire mission is a paltry $75 million … an amount that pales in comparison to the budgets of several Hollywood movies about space exploration!!!
The Chandrayaan-3 landing on the moon’s south pole is a big deal because traces of ice were recently discovered there … so the ISRO is hoping to explore the area for water that could be used to fuel future spacecraft.
One person who probably isn’t cheering India’s lunar success is Vladimir Putin — Russia attempted to land its own spacecraft on the moon just a few days ago, but it spun out of control and crashed into the surface.
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