India has become the first nation to successfully land on the Moon’s South Pole. The preparation for the same was not easy. While the launch was much in control of the S.Somnath-led team, the landing on the Moon’s surface was largely managed by the Vikram lander on its own
To prepare Vikram for the Moon’s landing, scientists had to simulate an environment similar to the Moon. Soil from Tamil Nadu district Namakkal, situated 400 km away from Chennai, was used to simulate lunar soil. ISRO scientists often get samples of soil from this area to create a bed similar to that of the Moon. Hence, soil from Namakkal played an important role in ensuring Chandrayaan-3’s soft landing on the Moon
Representative photo
Namakkal has been providing soil to ISRO for its Moon-related research and even provided soil for the previous Chandrayaan mission
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During an interaction with PTI, the Director of the Geology Department of Periyar University, Professor S. Anbazhagan said, "We have been engaged in conducting research in geology. Tamil Nadu has the kind of soil that is present on the lunar surface, particularly that which is very similar to the soil present at the southern pole [of the Moon]. The lunar surface has 'Anorthosite' [a type of intrusive igneous rock] type of soil."
Chandrayaan 2's former director Mylswamy Annadurai said that ISRO needed soil that matched the moon's surface to test Chandrayaan 1's landing
The 10 kg that ISRO needed was brought in from the US at the cost of $150 per kg. During the rover landing tests for Chandrayaan 2 in 2010, ISRO needed 60-70 kg of sand. Owing to the cost of procuring sand from the US, ISRO looked at other options. Soil that can help replicate Moon’s soil is present in abundance in Sithampoondi and Kunnamalai villages surrounding Namakkal. "After speaking with the top officials, we took the rocks from these places and crushed it to sand at a crusher near Salem. This was then taken to the ISRO labs and used to make a replica of the moon for carrying out the rover landing test," Mylswamy Annadurai told New The New Indian Express in a 2019 interview
Notably, the Indian space agency ISRO got the patent for its method of manufacturing highland lunar soil simulant or simply lunar/moon soil in 2020
Moon’s soil is made up of particles from one of its oldest and most dominant rock type Anorthosite. It is an intrusive igneous rock which covers most of the Moon’s surface and is highly reflective in nature
The Pragyan rover is scheduled to complete a lengthy list of scientific experiments before the end of the 15-day Mission on September 7 as the lunar day sets on the Moon. In a video shared by ISRO on X (Twitter) on Thursday, the rover was captured by a Lander Imager Camera while it rotated in search of a safe route
As part of updates sent by Chandrayaan-3, the Vikram Lander recently detected some unknown movement on the Moon’s surface. It is being speculated as a Moonquake, though there is no official confirmation on the same
Some of the findings done by Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon confirm traces of Sulphur, Aluminum, Calcium, Iron, Chromium, Titanium, Manganese, Silicon and Oxygen