Sarah Knapton
Wed, August 23, 2023
Prime minister Narendra Modi congratulates the Indian Space Research Organisation for the successful lunar landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon - Punit Paranjpe/AFP
India has just fired the starting gun on the race for resources on the Moon.
Not since Roald Amundsen wired Captain Scott to inform him he was: ‘At Madeira. Going South’, has there been such a frenzy to reach the South Pole.
While the Antarctic wasteland proved fatal for Scott, the Moon’s southern polar region holds the key for sustaining life for future astronauts, because it likely contains vast amounts of frozen water.
Controlling such a resource - which could also be converted into rocket fuel - will be vital for establishing Moon bases, a key goal of many space agencies in the next decade.
People celebrate the successful lunar landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon - Arun Sankar/AFP
Nasa plans to send a rover to the South Pole next year with US-based company Astrobotic Technology to measure water ahead of landing astronauts there in 2025 in the Artemis III mission.
China has also committed to sending astronauts there by the end of the decade, while Russia attempted a soft landing last week, which ended in failure.
So it is somewhat surprising that it is relative newcomer India which got there first, giving the country an unexpected head start in the hunt for water and other resources.
Its solar powered rover, named Pragyan, will trundle across the polar region for the next fortnight searching for ice.
Rajinikanth, the Indian actor, summed up what many were feeling, tweeting: “While superpowers like the US, Russia, and China watch in agast amazement, India stuns the world with this humongous achievement.”
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) said the Indian success was evidence the world was living in a “new space age” where new countries and companies were setting their sights on the Moon and beyond.
“This current crop of missions are focused on new areas of opportunity - there are important scientific discoveries to be made about the presence of water on the lunar surface, which could support humans to live and work there for extended periods of time,” Professor Anu Ojha OBE, Championing Space Director at the UK Space Agency.
Who owns the Moon?
But the Chandrayaan-3 mission also raises important questions about who owns the Moon, or any other space resource, and who should be allowed to exploit it.
Several countries including the US, Japan, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates have passed legislation granting companies and agencies the right to anything they extract on the lunar surface.
Earlier this year, the private Japanese company iSpace was due to carry out the first business transaction on the Moon - selling Moon dust to Nasa - but the spacecraft crashed on landing.
Some states, including Russia, are uncomfortable with what they see as a land grab by individual countries, and have called for international regulations to reign in the ‘Wild West’ economies that are emerging.
It does not help that current space law is vague about the exploitation of resources.
The UN’s 1966 Outer Space Treaty states that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means”.
In addition, its 1979 Moon Treaty called for “the orderly and safe use of the natural lunar resources with an equitable sharing by all state parties in the benefits derived from those resources”.
Nasa’s Artemis Accords, signed by 21 countries including Britain, the US and Japan, but not Russia, endorsed the ability to extract and use space resources.
But the accords also called for the Outer Space Treaty to be unheld, making for a puzzling and contradictory situation.
It is also unclear who would police any space misdemeanours, what the possible punishments might be, and if anything would even be enforceable off-world.
The great ‘water rush’
What is clear, is that all eyes are now turned skywards and whoever wins the great ‘water rush’ of the next decade is likely to control the Moon for far longer.
Bill Nelson, the administrator of Nasa has already warned that if China gets taikonauts to the region first, the country may seek to claim the South Pole.
In 2021 a Chinese lunar engineer, Ye Peijian, said it was ‘entirely possible’ the country could have ‘boots on the moon’ by the end of the decade.
Now India has also thrown its hat into an already crowded ring.
Narendra Modi watches the Chandrayaan-3 mission
Speaking after the successful landing on Wednesday, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, said: “The sky is not the limit. This is a victory cry of a new India.”
It is possible that India may face an ethical dilemma of spending millions to mine water on the Moon while struggling to provide water for hundreds of millions of its citizens back on Earth.
In a curious synchronicity, the current head of the Indian Space Research Organisation is Sreedhara Somnath, whose name translates to ‘Lord of the Moon’.
Whether this will prove to be a harbinger of Indian lunar supremacy remains to be seen.
Updated Wed, August 23, 2023
By Nivedita Bhattacharjee
BENGALURU (Reuters) -An Indian spacecraft became the first to land on the rugged, unexplored south pole of the moon on Wednesday in a mission seen as crucial to lunar exploration and India's standing as a space power, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed.
"This moment is unforgettable. It is phenomenal. This is a victory cry of a new India," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who waved the Indian flag as he watched the landing from South Africa where he is attending a BRICS summit, a group that joins Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Scientists and officials clapped, cheered and hugged each other as the spacecraft landed and people across India broke out in celebration, setting off firecrackers and dancing in the streets.
"India is on the moon," said S. Somanath, chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as the Chandrayaan-3 landed, making India the fourth nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon after the United States, China and the former Soviet Union.
ISRO shared pictures from the spacecraft showing the moon’s surface and the leg and shadow of the lander.
Rough terrain makes a south pole landing difficult, but the region's ice could supply fuel, oxygen and drinking water for future missions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated India in a message to Modi published on the Kremlin website.
"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," he said.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated the ISRO on the landing.
"And congratulations to India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon," he said on X, formerly Twitter. "We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!"
This was India's second attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon and comes less than a week after Russia's Luna-25 mission failed. People across the country were glued to television screens and said prayers as the spacecraft approached the surface.
Nearly 7 million watched the YouTube live stream.
Chandrayaan means "moon vehicle" in Hindi and Sanskrit. In 2019, ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 mission successfully deployed an orbiter but its lander crashed.
The Chandrayaan-3 is expected to remain functional for two weeks, running a series of experiments including a spectrometer analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface.
The moon rover will take a few hours or a day to come out of the spacecraft, Somanath told reporters, adding that the landing has given India confidence to extend its reach to possible voyages to Mars and Venus.
India is also planning to launch a mission in September to study the sun, Somanath said. A human space flight is also planned and, while no official date has been announced, preparations are likely to be ready by 2024.
The landing is expected to boost India's reputation for cost-competitive space engineering. The Chandrayaan-3 was launched with a budget of about 6.15 billion rupees ($74 million), less than the cost to produce the 2013 Hollywood space thriller "Gravity".
"Landing on the south pole would actually allow India to explore if there is water ice on the moon. And this is very important for cumulative data and science on the geology of the moon," said Carla Filotico, a partner and managing director at consultancy SpaceTec Partners.
Anticipation before the landing was feverish, with banner headlines across Indian newspapers and news channels running countdowns to the landing.
Prayers were held at places of worship across the country, and school children waved the Indian tricolour as they waited for live screenings of the landing.
Children gathered on the banks of the Ganga river, considered holy by Hindus, to pray for a safe landing, and mosques offered prayers.
At a Sikh temple, known as a gurduwara, in the capital New Delhi, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri also offered prayers.
"Not just economic, but India is achieving scientific and technological progress as well," Puri told reporters.
(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Sunil Kataria, Krishn Kaushik, Tanvi Mehta, Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and Shivam Patel, Editing by Gerry Doyle, Angus MacSwan and Nick Macfie)
Sonam Sheth,Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Wed, August 23, 2023
The Pragyaan rover will be the first robot to drive around on the lunar south pole. What will it find?Indian Space Research Organization
India's moon rover could roll out any minute to collect the first-ever samples of the lunar south pole.
The 57-pound rover is called Pragyaan — a Hindu name meaning one who possesses wisdom.
This moon landing is "a huge achievement for the whole nation," a space-exploration expert told Insider.
India just made history by becoming the first country to land successfully on the lunar south pole. And it's wasting no time.
Within hours of the uncrewed Vikram lander's successful moon landing, a tiny rover inside the lander is getting ready to roll out onto the dusty grey surface of the moon.
It's set to collect the first samples ever of the lunar south pole.
The adorable rover is called Pragyaan — a Hindu name meaning one who possesses greater knowledge and wisdom.
Pragyaan weighs 57 pounds, about the size of a small German shepherd or bull terrier, and it's poised to spend the next two weeks driving where no robot or human has been before.
S. Somanath, the director of the Indian Space Research Organization, told reporters outside mission control that the rover could roll out in a few hours or tomorrow, according to the New York Times.
Pragyaan's science could be critical for learning how to mine moon water — a goal every moon-minded nation is eyeing.
The rover may be small and cute, but India's new moon mission "definitely puts them on the international stage as an emerging space power," Robert Braun, head of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory's (APL) Space Exploration Sector, told Insider.
What will India's moon rover do next?
It's equipped with a laser and an alpha-particle beam to help it study the composition of the lunar south pole, which is of particular interest.
The Vikram lander is the first robot to successfully land on the lunar south pole. Inside, it carried the Pragyaan lunar rover, which rolls out and down to the ground on the ramp shown here.Indian Space Research Organisation
The lunar south pole is thought to be the most water-rich region on the moon. That's critical since water ice could be mined to produce breathable oxygen for future crewed lunar bases, as well as hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel that could propel future missions to Mars and beyond.
The rover will also use its RAMBHA and ILSA payloads on board to study the lunar atmosphere as well as dig up samples for additional analysis of the surface's composition, per Times of India.
Moreover, its laser beams will attempt to melt a sample to study the gases emitted for more insight into the lunar south pole's chemical makeup, per Times of India.
A moment for the history books
India is the fourth country — after Russia, the US, and China — to land on the moon.
"It's a huge achievement for the whole nation," Braun said. "Last time they got to the playoffs, if you will, and this time they won the Super Bowl."
"Everyone in the space community is joining with the nation of India, and their talented engineers and scientists, and celebrating their success and this achievement," he added.
Art Raymond
Wed, August 23, 2023
This NASA image, showing areas of the moon’s south pole that are most likely to hold deposits of water ice, was assembled with data gathered by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Water sources are seen as a key element in supporting an ongoing human presence on the moon and could help provide fuel for future space missions launched from the lunar surface. | NASA
India became the first nation to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole on Wednesday, winning a multination race to reach the area and joining an elite group of countries that have successfully landed on the Earth’s sole satellite.
The Indian Space Research Organization tweeted about its efforts to deploy a small rover from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft later on Wednesday and has plans to conduct experiments for the next two weeks in an area that is believed to hold deposits of water ice. The landing makes India the fourth country, in addition to the U.S., Russia and China, to have landed spacecraft on the moon.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi watched the landing from South Africa, where he is participating in the BRICS nations summit.
“India is now on the moon. India has reached the south pole of the moon — no other country has achieved that. We are witnessing history,” Modi said as he waved the Indian tricolored flag, per The Associated Press.
In a surge of activity that echoes the multinational race to plant the first flag at the Earth’s south pole around the turn of the 20th century, the world’s leaders in extraterrestrial exploration have been vying to be the first to do the same at the lunar south pole. And all are keenly interested in finding out more about a single, precious commodity on the planet.
Water.
Russia was poised to be the first nation to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole on Monday but the state-run space corporation Roscosmos reported its Luna-25 lander ran into trouble and crash-landed on the surface of the moon on Saturday.
India’s Chandrayaan-3 had been in lunar orbit since earlier this month before its landing on Wednesday.
While the failed Luna-25 and the Chandrayaan-3 are both unmanned probes on missions to gather further information on lunar water sources, the U.S has its own plans for deeper exploration of the moon’s south pole. But NASA has a grander vision in place, the multiphase Artemis program, and instead of sending a remote probe, the U.S. space agency has plans underway to send a manned mission to the lunar south pole, which would be the first human return to the surface of the moon since the final Apollo moon visit in December 1972.
Scientists are accumulating mounting evidence that water ice could exist on or near the moon’s surface and believe one of the most likely areas to find it could be in permanently shaded locations near the satellite’s south pole. Water access will be a necessary component in any plans for a long-term human presence on the moon as a life necessity, source of oxygen production, a potential material for shielding against constant radiation bombardment, and is a material that can be refined into its base components of oxygen and hydrogen to fuel potential rocket launches from the lunar surface.
While human colonization of the moon may sound more like the plot of a science fiction tale than a workable plan, NASA is aiming for a manned mission to the moon in late 2025 and believes components for a moon base could start ferrying from Earth in the 2030s.
In 2020, NASA unveiled plans to build a single moon base in the south pole region as part of its long-range Artemis program goals but earlier this year offered an update on how that might play out.
At a space symposium in April, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development, Jim Free, said the agency’s Artemis program may ultimately build several bases around the moon instead of a single Artemis Base Camp at the lunar south pole as unveiled in 2020, according to a report from Space.com.
“It’s really hard to say we’re going to have a single base camp,” Free told reporters at the symposium. “Because if we miss a launch window, we might have to wait a month to go back to that place.”
NASA says returning astronauts to the moon and continuing to work toward establishing permanent moon bases will accommodate greatly expanded scientific study of the lunar environment while also laying the groundwork for future deep space exploration missions.
“With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before,” NASA said in a web posting. “We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.”
One giant step: Moon race heats up
AFP
Wed, August 23, 2023
India became the first nation to successfully land a craft on the Moon's south pole on Wednesday, the latest milestone in a renewed push for lunar exploration that has drawn in both the world's top space powers and new players.
New Delhi's attempt came days after the crash-landing on the Moon of Russia's Luna-25 probe.
Here is the latest on various missions to the celestial body:
- India's Chandrayaan-3 -
Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, follows India's successful launch of a probe into lunar orbit in 2008 and a failed lunar landing in 2019.
The mission launched in mid-July and orbited Earth several times to build up the necessary speed for its journey.
Following Wednesday's successful landing, a solar-powered rover will explore the surface of the relatively unmapped lunar south pole and transmit data to Earth over its two-week lifespan.
The mission is the latest milestone in an ambitious but relatively cheap space programme that saw India become the first Asian nation to put a craft into orbit around Mars in 2014.
The Indian Space Research Organisation is also slated to launch a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit by next year.
- Russia's Luna -
The launch of Luna-25 on August 11 was the first such Russian mission in almost 50 years and marked the beginning of Moscow's new lunar project.
On August 16, the lander was successfully placed in the Moon's orbit but three days later, it "ceased to exist following a collision with the Moon's surface", space agency Roscomos said.
It had been set to land on the Moon's surface and remain there for one year to collect samples and analyse soil.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been working to strengthen space cooperation with China after ties with the West broke down following the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Moscow had hoped to build on the legacy of the Soviet-era Luna programme, marking a return to independent lunar exploration in the face of financial troubles and corruption scandals at its space programme.
- China's great leap -
China is pursuing plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030 and build a base there.
The world's second-largest economy has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space programme in a push to catch up with the United States and Russia.
China was the third country to place humans in orbit in 2003 and its Tiangong rocket is the crown jewel of its space programme, which has also landed rovers on Mars and the Moon.
The unmanned Chang'e-4 rocket landed on the far side of the Moon in 2019. Another robot mission to the near side raised the Chinese flag there in 2020.
That Moon landing brought rock and soil samples back to Earth, the first time that has been done in more than four decades.
- NASA's Artemis -
NASA's Artemis 3 mission is set to return humans to the Moon in 2025.
Under the Artemis program, NASA is planning a series of missions of increasing complexity to return to the Moon and build up a sustained presence so it can develop and test technologies for an eventual journey to Mars.
Artemis 1 flew an uncrewed spacecraft around the Moon in 2022.
Artemis 2, planned for November 2024, will do the same with crew on board.
NASA sees the Moon as a pitstop for missions to Mars and has done a deal with Finnish mobile firm Nokia to set up a 4G network there.
However it has said the Artemis 3 mission may not land humans on the Moon. That will depend on whether certain key elements are finished in time.
Elon Musk's firm SpaceX won the contract for a landing system based on a version of its prototype Starship rocket, which remains far from ready.
An orbital test flight of the uncrewed Starship ended in a dramatic explosion in April.
- New players -
Recent technological progress has reduced the cost of space missions and opened the way for new players in the public and private sectors to get involved.
But getting to the Moon is not an easy task. Israeli non-profit organisation SpaceIL launched its Beresheet lunar lander in 2019 but it crashed.
And in April this year, Japan's ispace was the latest company to try, and fail, at the historic bid to put a private lunar lander on the Moon.
Two US companies, Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, are set to try later in the year.
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