On August 23rd, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced that the spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 had landed safely near the moon’s South Pole. The announcement came five weeks after the craft had been launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, India. The landing is highly significant for the country. India is only the fourth country to land on the moon, following the former Soviet Union, the United States, and China. They are also the first country to land in the lunar South Pole region. The reaction within India has been celebratory, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi commemorating the landing day as National Space Day.
The landing is also an important move in the international space race. Days before the Chandrayaan-3 landing, a Russian lander smashed into the moon’s surface, failing to land properly. Another lander built by a Japanese company failed to land this past April. The United States, Japan, and China are planning more moon missions for the next year, but India’s mission will remain the talk of the international space exploration community for months to come. Representative of India’s continuing ascent as a global power, the Chandrayaan-3 landing is also a mark of pride for Indians all over the world.
Prime Minister Modi called the moon mission “a victory cry for a new India,” while D.Y. Chandrachud, India’s Chief Justice, said it represented “a milestone in the march of the nation.” Indians living in the United States are also feeling proud. Bipinchandra Modi, Tax Specialist in Massachusetts, tells Sampan, “My community and I congratulate India and are very proud of the achievement of Indian scientists…India has established herself as a major player in space research, and it will be beneficial for India and whole world.” Mohinder Singh, a member of the Sikh Community of Massachusetts, wrote to Sampan that the landing “is a historic moment for humanity and will open a new era of scientific research and innovations. I wish all the best on ISRO’s future projects.”
World leaders have joined in congratulating India. The U.S. State Department wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “[The ISRO’s] success will power the imagination and light the future of people around the world.” Director of the European Space Agency Josef Aschbacher said he was “thoroughly impressed” by the mission. Even the Kremlin in Russia released a statement, writing “This is a big step forward in space exploration and, of course, a testament to the impressive progress made by India in the field of science and technology.” It is a sign of how great India’s achievement is that the United States and Russia can both agree on its significance.
The ISRO plans to record data for two weeks. Observing the lunar South Pole and conducting experiments on the lunar surface are among the objectives of the mission, and thus far, scientists have recorded temperature on and below the moon’s surface and detected the presence of sulfur and other elements near the South Pole. The ISRO is now searching for hydrogen. All of this has been accomplished on a budget of around $75 million USD – $25 million less than the production costs of the recent film Oppenheimer.
What is the upshot of this recent mission? What future does it point to? The success of the Chandrayaan-3 has cemented India’s place in space innovation, but it has occurred in the context of renewed interest in crewed missions to the moon and potential lunar “colonization”. The stated long-term goal of NASA’s current Artemis Program, for example, is to establish a permanent base on the moon as early as 2028. “These missions set up a long-term presence to inform future exploration of farther destinations, including Mars, and other potential future destinations in the solar system,” reads NASA’s “Moon to Mars” webpage.
It is easy to be cynical about such grand claims. Humans today live in a world full of risk: climate change, nuclear war, societal decline. Is space exploration a kind of escapism, a way to ignore the pressing problems of the present? Or is it a bright spot in today’s darkening world, a sign of human ingenuity and persistence in the face of the threats to our existence? Perhaps it is both. The conflicts of the present will continue, but we continue to look to the stars. To repurpose an old saying from the U.S. moon landing in 1969, if we can land on the moon, what can’t we do?
