Chandrayaan-3: Vikram has landed on Moon. You are next, Sun!

Sudhakar Panicker Somanath, Chairperson of the national space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is a man of few words. Just like the celebrity singer from his home state of Kerala Kattasery Joseph Yesudas moves on to his next concert after soothing countless frayed nerves with his divine voice, Somanath with his technical foresight moves on to the next task after successfully accomplishing a challenging technological assignment.

Within moments of the successful soft touchdown by Vikram Lander and Pragyaan Rover in the -13-degree Celsius South Pole environment, a joyous Prime Minister acknowledging the efforts put in by Somanath and his team Narendra Modi declared, “The hard work of our scientists has led India to land on the side of the Moon that no country had reached earlier. This moment will help rewrite the popular narratives on the Moon.”

The achievement also makes India the fourth country to successfully conduct a soft landing on the Moon’s surface.

Rewind to 2021. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi waited with other scientists at the same ISRO facility to witness the Chandryaan-2 mission’s safe landing, Somanath, who was not chairperson at the time, appears nervous. In the television feed from that fateful day on September 17, 2019, he seems to be praying earnestly for the success of the mission even as his head and feet move restlessly.

On Wednesday, Somanath would have finally been able to put Chandrayaan-2 failure behind him as a bad memory.

The importance of being Chandrayaan

But what is it about the Chandrayaan Missions that make them so important that the failure of the second mission left the current ISRO head and millions of other Indians so very heartbroken?

For one, the Chandrayaan missions to the Moon prove India’s capability as a rising space superpower that is capable of developing and executing not only advanced satellites but also interplanetary missions at the lowest possible cost.

For instance, Chadrayaan-1 was the first lunar probe to detect the presence of magmatic water on the Moon from orbit.

A series of scientific experiments

Chandryaan-3 also has a series of scientific experiments lined up in its short life span of 1 Lunar Day, which is equivalent to 14 Earth days.

The four payloads on Vikram Lander will measure the density of changes in near-surface plasma comprising ions and electrons, thermal properties of the lunar surface near polar regions, seismicity around the landing site and delineating the structure of the lunar crust and mantle as well as conduct a passive experiment to understand the dynamics of Moon system.

The payloads on Pragyan or ‘wisdom’ Rover will do a qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis to get a better understanding of the lunar surface.

The Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload on the propulsion module is designed to probe a variety of exo-planets that would qualify for the presence of life.

The data collected will come in handy when India decides to go to the Moon either as part of an international collaboration or on its own in the future.

In the near term, however, it is the Sun that is next on ISRO’s agenda. The space agency may be sending Aditya L-1, a solar observatory to study the star as early as September.