Tuesday, August 22, 2023

LUNA 3
India’s moon landing could make lunar history

Briley Lewis
Tue, August 22, 2023 

The Chandrayaan-3 lander prior to its launch.


This could be a record week for space exploration—despite the obliterating crash of Russia’s lunar spacecraft on Sunday. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will attempt to land on the moon on August 23 with the Chandrayaan-3 mission. If successful, India will be only the fourth country to successfully place a probe on the moon, and the first to land at the lunar south pole.

The first Soviet and American soft landings on the moon happened all the way back in the 1960s, at the dawn of the Space Race. But it’s not easy to deposit a lunar lander—since those early successes, China has been the sole country to join Russia and the US in this feat.

“Very few countries have landed on anything. It’s just really hard, and everything has to work just about perfectly,” says Dave Williams, a planetary scientist who archives data of the moon at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

To start, spaceflight is a huge engineering challenge, and the moon is a particularly tricky target. Unlike Earth or Mars, our satellite has no atmosphere, so there’s nothing natural to slow down a spacecraft—no air for parachutes or gliders to use. The only way to get to the surface without crashing is a controlled descent, in which rockets lower the probe all the way down. Plus, the rocket engines must shut off at a precise moment so the craft doesn’t bounce back up off the lunar surface.

Making matters worse, although the moon doesn’t have oceans or cities, it still has plenty of hazards—namely, rocks and craters. Spacecraft have to navigate this terrain mostly on their own. The moon is far away enough from Earth command centers that a lander must be pre-programmed to do what it needs to for a safe landing.

This isn’t India’s first visit to the moon. The country’s lunar program began back in 2008, with a lunar orbiter and impactor in the Chandrayaan-1 mission. Chandrayaan-1 “played a vital role in raising awareness of space science among the general public,” says University of Florida astronomer Pranav Satheesh. “Many students, including myself, were inspired to pursue careers in space science and astronomy upon witnessing the success of ISRO's programs.”

India made its first attempt at a soft landing with the Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019. Unfortunately, that lander, named Vikram after the pioneering physicist Vikram Sarabhai, failed in the very last stages of its descent, crashing into the lunar surface. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later spotted debris from Vikram’s crash as bits of metal strewn across the lunar landscape. The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter remained operational, however, and it continues to collect data in support of the current lunar landing attempt.

Chandrayaan-3’s journey so far has been right on track. "Excitement about this mission is definitely palpable across Indian news media, WhatsApp chats, and even in everyday conversations for a lot of folks there," says Pratik Gandhi, an astronomer at the University of California, Davis.

It entered lunar orbit on August 5, separated from its propulsion system on August 17, and even snapped a few teaser pics of the moon on August 18. As the lander descends to the moon in the coming days, the most dangerous moment is likely the landing’s final step: the fine braking phase. “The lander must kill all of its velocity and enter a hover state at about a kilometer above the lunar surface, at which point it must also decide in 12 seconds if it’s above its desired landing region or not and proceed with the touchdown accordingly,” explains science journalist Jatan Mehta. Russia’s Luna-25 probe, on the other hand, failed much earlier in its journey—which may be a sign of poor manufacturing or a lack of testing.

When the Indian lander touches down, it should only be moving at about 4 miles per hour. But only the slightest deviations separate a crash landing from a controlled one. “The moon’s gravity, even though it is only about one-sixth of Earth’s, is still more than enough to destroy a spacecraft if it isn’t slowed down,” says Williams.

If Chandrayaan-3 safely reaches the moon, it has some exciting science investigations in store. Unlike any lander to come before, Chandrayaan-3 is targeting the moon’s south pole, where astronomers think there are deposits of water. Water is a crucial resource for future longer-term space exploration, both for astronauts to drink and for use as rocket fuel.

Chandryaan-3’s lander, also called Vikram, is carrying a small rover named Pragyan. Pragyan is only about 50 pounds—the weight of a medium-sized Goldendoodle—and will roam the lunar surface for about two weeks. It’s equipped with two spectrometers, which can measure the composition of rocks and soil, providing scientists with crucial information about this never-before-explored region of the moon.

The lunar southlands are also a key target for future installments in NASA’s Artemis program, paving the way for semi-permanent human habitation on our nearest celestial neighbor. In June 2023, India signed on to the Artemis Accords, an agreement for cooperation between countries in space exploration. Japan, another signatory of the accords, even has a rover in the works with India, with the goal of drilling into the lunar south pole in search of more water. All of these plans will have a better chance at fruition if India successfully lands on the moon.

“That India is one of the few countries to be able to build lunar landers means Chandrayaan-3’s success will be a critical part of being able to truly sustain the current global momentum for a return to the moon,” says Mehta. As more nations try to land on the moon, lessons from success—and failures—should help improve each next attempt.

Tune in to watch the Chandrayaan-3 landing on the ISRO’s YouTube channel starting at 7:57 a.m. Eastern time/4:57 a.m. Pacific (5:27 p.m. India Standard Time) on August 23. The actual landing is scheduled to take place approximately 37 minutes later. Within seconds, we should know if the lander has safely touched down on the moon.

India's Chandrayaan-3 images far side of the moon ahead of Aug. 23 landing try (photos)

Andrew Jones
Mon, August 21, 2023 

closeup of the moon's surface, showing numerous craters


India's Chandrayaan-3 probe has been testing out its landing optics by imaging the far side of the moon.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released the images via X, the social media service formerly named Twitter, on Monday (Aug. 21).

The series of four Chandrayaan-3 images were taken on Saturday (Aug. 19) and show a range of geological features, including vast impact craters that cast varying degrees of shadows and lunar mare, or "seas" of cooled moon lava.

Related: Chandrayaan-3: A guide to India's third mission to the moon

closeup of the moon's surface, showing numerous craters

The far side of the moon never faces Earth because of "tidal locking," with our planet's gravity having slowed the rotation of its natural satellite over billions of years. The moon completes one rotation on its axis in the same amount of time it takes to orbit Earth.

The new images were captured by Chandrayaan-3's Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC). The camera is designed to help guide the mission's Vikram lander to a safe landing site during its descent onto the lunar surface.

"This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area — without boulders or deep trenches — during the descent is developed by ISRO at SAC," ISRO stated.

Chandrayaan-3 is scheduled to land around 8:34 a.m. EDT (1234 GMT and 18:04 India time) on Wednesday (Aug. 23). The spacecraft is targeting a landing site at 69.37 degrees south latitude and 32.35 degrees east longitude, near the lunar south pole. A live telecast of the attempt will begin around 45 minutes earlier, according to ISRO. You can watch that webcast here at Space.com.

Chandrayaan-3 is now aiming to be the first probe ever to make a soft landing in the vicinity of the lunar south pole. It was considered by many to be in a race with Russia's Luna-25 lander, but the latter spacecraft crashed into the moon following a failed orbital maneuver on Saturday (Aug. 19).

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India's first attempt to land on the moon came in 2019. The Chandrayaan-2 lander experienced errors during the latter part of its descent and made a hard impact with the lunar surface. ISRO stated on Monday that the Chandrayaan-3 lander established two-way communications with the orbiter from the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

Chandrayaan-3 launched into a highly elliptical Earth orbit on July 14, before gradually raising its orbit and firing itself into a lunar trajectory. It entered lunar orbit on Aug. 5 before conducting a series of engine burns to circularize its orbit.

The Vikram lander, which also carries a small rover named Pragyan, separated from the mission's propulsion module on Aug. 17. If they land successfully, Vikram and Pragyan will spend almost a full lunar daytime (roughly 14 Earth days) conducting science experiments on the moon.

A soft landing would make India only the fourth country, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China, to achieve such a feat. But that list could soon get bigger. Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is scheduled to lift off on a H-2A rocket on Aug. 26 from Tanegashima Space Center

India's boom, Russia's crunch: how money is shaping a new space race






By Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Joey Roulette
Tue, August 22, 2023 

BENGALURU/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The space race India aims to win this week by landing first on the moon's south pole is about science, the politics of national prestige and a new frontier: money.

India's Chandrayaan-3 is heading for a landing on the lunar south pole on Wednesday. If it succeeds, analysts and executives expect an immediate boost for the South Asian nation's nascent space industry.

Russia's Luna-25, which launched less than two weeks ago, had been on track to get there first – before the lander crashed from orbit, possibly taking with it the funding for a successor mission, analysts say.

The seemingly sudden competition to get to a previously unexplored region of the moon recalls the space race of the 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed.

But now space is a business, and the moon's south pole is a prize because of the water ice there that planners expect could support a future lunar colony, mining operations and eventual missions to Mars.

With a push by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has privatised space launches and is looking to open the sector to foreign investment as it targets a five-fold increase in its share of the global launch market within the next decade.

If Chandrayaan-3 succeeds, analysts expect India's space sector to capitalise on a reputation for cost-competitive engineering. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had a budget of around just $74 million for the mission.

NASA, by comparison, is on track to spend roughly $93 billion on its Artemis moon programme through 2025, the U.S. space agency's inspector general has estimated.

"The moment this mission is successful, it raises the profile of everyone associated with it," said Ajey Lele, a consultant at New Delhi's Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

"When the world looks at a mission like this, they aren't looking at ISRO in isolation."

RUSSIA'S CRUNCH

Despite Western sanctions over its war in Ukraine and increasing isolation, Russia managed to launch a moonshot. But some experts doubt its ability to fund a successor to Luna-25. Russia has not disclosed what it spent on the mission.

"Expenses for space exploration are systematically reduced from year to year," said Vadim Lukashevich, an independent space expert and author based in Moscow.

Russia's budget prioritisation of the war in Ukraine makes a repeat of Luna-25 "extremely unlikely", he added.

Russia had been considering a role in NASA’s Artemis programme until 2021, when it said it would partner instead on China's moon programme. Few details of that effort have been disclosed.

China made the first ever soft landing on the far side of the moon in 2019 and has more missions planned. Space research firm Euroconsult estimates China spent $12 billion on its space programme in 2022.

NASA'S PLAYBOOK


But by opening to private money, NASA has provided the playbook India is following, officials there have said.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, for example, is developing the Starship rocket for its satellite launch business as well as to ferry NASA astronauts to the moon’s surface under a $3-billion contract.

Beyond that contract, SpaceX will spend roughly $2 billion on Starship this year, Musk has said.

U.S. space firms Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines are building lunar landers that are expected to launch to the moon's south pole by year's end, or in 2024.

And companies such as Axiom Space and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are developing privately funded successors to the International Space Station. On Monday, Axiom said it raised $350 million from Saudi and South Korean investors.

Space remains risky. India’s last attempt to land failed in 2019, the same year an Israeli startup failed at what would have been the first privately funded moon landing. Japanese startup ispace had a failed landing attempt this year.

"Landing on the moon is hard, as we’re seeing,” said Bethany Ehlmann, a professor at California Institute of Technology, who is working with NASA on a 2024 mission to map the lunar south pole and its water ice.

"For the past few years, the moon seems to be eating spacecraft."

(This story has been refiled to add Reuters Instrument Code in paragraph 21)

(Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Clarence Fernandez)


Russia's moon crash ‘raises the stakes’ for India's successful landing

Matt Berg
Mon, August 21, 2023 

Aijaz Rahi/AP Photo

India’s lunar lander is working “perfectly,” the head of India’s space agency said Monday, just days after Russia crashed its spacecraft into the moon.

The Chandrayaan-3 lander is scheduled to land on the moon on Wednesday with no contingencies expected, Indian Space Research Organization Chair S. Somanath said in a statement.

Now, experts say New Delhi has a huge opportunity to cement its space prowess.

“It raises the stakes of success. India has always been viewed by the world as a junior spacefaring state,” said Peter Garretson, a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and a former Defense Department official. “If India can succeed where Russia has failed, it signals a new pecking order in space.”

After a surprise launch by Russia’s space agency in early August to beat India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander to the lunar south pole — Moscow’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century — the spacecraft plunged into the moon’s surface after its pre-landing maneuvers malfunctioned.

Both countries aimed for the region because of its potential supply of water, which could provide the building blocks for breathable oxygen, drinking water and even rocket fuel for spacefaring nations with bases on the south pole.

There’s no guarantee of such resources on the surface. But back on Earth, New Delhi could reap different rewards.

“It will signal an arrival of sorts on the global stage and change the perception of India … ‘looking up’ to Russian achievements and technological know-how,” Garretson said. “If successful, the leadership order has flipped.”

Boosting India’s space program has been a priority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the landing will “script a new history of planetary exploration” if successful, Indian politician Jitendra Singh said in a statement.

In July, India became the 26th country to sign on to NASA’s Artemis Accords, Washington’s preferred principles for space exploration as more countries aim for the cosmos.

Chandrayaan-3, Luna-25: The race to unravel the mysteries of Moon's south pole

Soutik Biswas - India correspondent
Mon, August 21, 2023 

A passenger plane flying over the full Moon before landing in California in early August

The sun lingers slightly above or just below the horizon, while towering mountains project dark shadows.

Deep craters provide a haven for unending darkness. Some of these areas have been shielded from sunlight for billions of years. In these regions, temperatures plummet to astonishing lows of -414F (-248C) - because the Moon has no atmosphere to warm up the surface. No human has set foot in this completely unexplored world.

The Moon's south pole, according to Nasa, is full of "mystery, science and intrigue".

No wonder then that there's a so-called space race to reach the south pole of the Moon, far away from the Apollo landing sites clustered around the equator.

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into Moon

This week, India plans to land a robotic probe - Chandrayaan-3 - near the south pole. (On Sunday, Russia's Luna-25, which was expected to be the first to do this, crashed into the Moon). India is also planning a joint Lunar Polar Exploration (Lupex) mission with Japan to explore the shadowed regions or the 'dark side of the Moon' by 2026.

Why is the south pole emerging as a compelling scientific destination? Scientists say a key reason is water.

An image sent by Chandrayaan-3 show the craters on the lunar surface

Data gathered by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a Nasa spacecraft that has been orbiting the Moon for 14 years, suggests water ice is present in some of the large permanently shadowed craters that could potentially sustain humanity. (Water exists as a solid or vapour on the Moon because of the vacuum - the Moon doesn't have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere.) India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission was the first to find evidence of water on the Moon in 2008.

"It is yet to be proven that the water ice is accessible or mineable. In other words, are there reserves of water that can be extracted economically?" Clive Neal, a professor of planetary geology at the US University of Notre Dame, told me.

The prospect of finding water on the Moon is exciting in many ways, scientists say.

India's latest Moon mission sends first photos

The frozen water untainted by the Sun's radiation might have accumulated in cold polar regions over millions of years, leading to the accumulation of ice on or near the surface. This provides a unique sample for scientists to analyse and understand the history of water in our solar system.

"We can address questions such as where did the water come from and when, and what are the implications for the evolution on life on Earth," says Simeon Barber, a planetary scientist at UK's The Open University, who also works with the European Space Agency.

There are other "pragmatic" reasons for accessing water on or just below the Moon's surface, says Prof Barber.

Many countries are planning new human missions to the Moon, and the astronauts will need water for drinking and sanitation.

Transporting equipment from Earth to the Moon involves overcoming the Earth's gravitational pull. The larger the equipment, the more rocket and fuel load would be needed to achieve a successful landing on the Moon. The new commercial space companies charge around $1m to take a kilogram of payload to the Moon.

"That's $1m per litre of drinking water! Space entrepreneurs no doubt see lunar ice as an opportunity to supply astronauts with locally sourced water," says Prof Barber.

The private firms helping India aim high in space

That's not all. Water molecules can be broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and both can be used as propellants to fire rockets. But first scientists need to know how much ice is there on the Moon, in what forms, and whether it can be extracted efficiently and purified to make it safe to drink.

Also, some extremes at the south pole are bathed in sunlight for extended periods of time, up to 200 Earth days of constant illumination. "Solar power is another resource [to set up a lunar base and power equipment] potential that the pole has," says Noah Petro, a project scientist at Nasa.

The lunar south pole also sits on the rim of a massive impact crater of the solar system. Spanning a diameter of 2,500km (1,600 miles) and reaching depths of up to 8km, this crater is one of the most ancient features within the solar system. "By landing on the pole you can begin to understand what is going on with this large crater," says Mr Petro.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a Nasa spacecraft, has been orbiting the Moon for 14 years

Navigating the lunar pole with rovers, space suits and sampling tools in a distinctly different light and thermal environment in contrast to previously explored equatorial sites also promises to yield valuable insights.

But scientists are chary of calling this a race to the south pole. "These missions have been planned for decades and got delayed so many times. Race is not critical to our understanding of the Moon. The last time there was a real space race, we ended up losing interest in the Moon after three years and haven't returned to its surface in 50 years," says Vishnu Reddy, a professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona.

The Indian and Russian missions also had some common objectives, scientists point out.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos to help Nasa return to Moon

Both aimed to land with similarly sized spacecraft in the south polar region, further south of the equator than any previous lunar mission.

Following an unsuccessful landing attempt in 2019, India will seek to showcase its capability for precise lunar touchdown near the pole. It also aims at examining the Moon's exosphere - an extremely sparse atmosphere - and analysing the polar regolith, an accumulation of loose particles and dust amassed over billions of years that rest above a bedrock.

Luna-25's objectives included the analysis of the polar regolith's composition, as well as an examination of plasma and dust elements of the lunar pole exosphere.

To be sure, the landing site of the Indian orbiter is a "bit away from the actual pole". "But the data [it provides] will be fascinating," says Prof Neal.

Russia and China have plans to build a lunar space station to develop research facilities on the surface of the Moon, in orbit or both. Russian is planning more Luna missions. Nasa is sending instruments on commercial landers to go to places across the Moon. Japan is preparing to send a smart lander (the SLIM mission) on 26 August - a small-scale mission to demonstrate accurate lunar landing techniques by a small explorer.

And, of course, Nasa's Artemis programme aims to put astronauts back on the Moon in a series of spaceflights, more than half a century after the last Apollo mission.

"The Moon is like a giant puzzle. We have some of the pieces, the corners and edges based on samples and lunar meteorite data. We have a picture of what the Moon is like, but it is incomplete," says Mr Petro.

"The Moon is still surprising us."


Chandrayaan-3: India's lunar lander Vikram searches for safe Moon landing spot

Geeta Pandey - BBC News, Delhi
Mon, August 21, 2023 

One of the latest images sent by the Vikram lander

India's space agency has released images of the far side of the Moon as its third lunar mission attempts to locate a safe landing spot on the little-explored south pole.

The pictures have been taken by Vikram, Chandrayaan-3's lander, which began the last phase of its mission on Thursday.

Vikram, which carries a rover in its belly, is due to land on 23 August.

The photos come a day after Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon after spinning out of control.

The craft - Russia's first Moon mission in nearly 50 years - was due to be the first ever to land on the south pole, but failed after encountering problems as it moved into its pre-landing orbit.

On Monday morning, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said the lander from Chandrayaan-3, which is due to touch down on Wednesday at 18:04 India time (12:34 GMT), has been mapping the landing area and taking images with its "hazard detection and avoidance" camera.

Isro added that the black-and-white images sent by this camera will assist them "in locating a safe landing area - without boulders or deep trenches".

The lunar far side is the side that faces away from the Earth and is sometimes also called "the dark side of the Moon" because so little is known about it. Scientists say landing there can be a tricky affair.

But there's a lot of interest in this part of the Moon which scientists think could hold frozen water and precious elements.

India's latest Moon mission sends first photos

Historic India Moon mission lifts off successfully

Isro said on Sunday that the lander module had been successfully lowered into an orbit closer to the Moon (of 25km by 134km) and is now waiting for the lunar Sun-rise to land.

If Chandrayaan-3 is successful, India will be first to land on the lunar south pole. It will also be only the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.


Graphic showing the LVM3 launch rocket, with three engine phases, and where the Chandrayaan-3 will be while it it carried into orbit

The third in India's programme of lunar exploration, Chandrayaan-3 is expected to build on the success of its earlier Moon missions.

It comes 15 years after the country's first Moon mission in 2008, which discovered the presence of water molecules on the parched lunar surface and established that the Moon has an atmosphere during daytime.

Chandrayaan-2 - which also comprised an orbiter, a lander and a rover - was launched in July 2019 but it was only partially successful. Its orbiter continues to circle and study the Moon even today, but the lander-rover failed to make a soft landing and crashed during touchdown.

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Was India's Moon mission actually a success?

Isro chief Sreedhara Panicker Somanath has said that the space agency had carefully studied the data from its crash and carried out simulation exercises to fix the glitches in Chandrayaan-3, which weighs 3,900kg and cost 6.1bn rupees ($75m; £58m). The lander module weighs about 1,500kg, including the 26kg-rover Pragyaan.

The south pole of the Moon is still largely unexplored - the surface area that remains in shadow there is huge, and scientists say it means there is a possibility of water in areas that are permanently shadowed.

One of the major goals of Chandrayaan-3 is to hunt for water ice, which scientists say could support human habitation on the Moon in future. It could also be used for supplying propellant for spacecraft headed to Mars and other distant destinations.


Graphic showing how the Chandrayaan-3 will get to the Moon, from take off, to orbiting the Earth in phases until it reaches the Moon's orbit, when the lander will separate from the propulsion module before landing near the Moon's south pole

After Russia's Failure, India Is Preparing to Land on the Moon

Victor Tangermann
Mon, August 21, 2023


Polar Vortex

Just days after Russia crashed its Luna-25 lunar lander on its way to the Moon's surface, India's space agency is gearing up for its own attempt.

The two countries were in a race to become the first country to softly land a craft near the lunar south pole, a region scientists believe could be rich with water ice, a key resource for potential settlement efforts.

But with Russia out of the race for now, all eyes are on India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, a followup to a precursor that crash-landed on its way to the lunar surface back in 2019.

We'll be watching closely because the stakes are high. If successful, the mission could make India only the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon, following the US, the Soviet Union, and China — and, in a sense both symbolic and technical, show that it's pulling ahead of Russia's increasingly disastrous space program.
Trying Again

The lander-rover pair will attempt their treacherous journey to the south pole on Wednesday, if all goes according to plan. Officials from India's space agency ISRO told reporters on Monday that all the spacecraft's systems are working "perfectly," Reuters reports.

The mission's objectives are first to prove the country's capability of safely landing on the Moon, and then study the composition of the lunar south pole if successful.

Chandrayaan-3 features several technological upgrades over its precursor that could give it a better shot of sticking the landing later this week. For one, ISRO is giving itself a larger potential landing zone in the case of adverse conditions. It also has sturdier legs, an important because the south pole's terrain is comparatively rough.
Moon Stakes

If all goes according to plan — needless to say, that's still an astronomical "if" — the lander will release a 57-pound, six-wheeled rover that will explore the surrounding areas for evidence of water ice using an X-ray spectrometer and a laser spectroscope.

A success could catapult India ahead in the international race to establish a permanent presence on the Moon — especially now that Russia's attempt has failed.

"If Chandrayaan-3 succeeds, it will boost India's space agency's reputation worldwide," former ISRO scientist Manish Purohit told Reuters. "It will show that India is becoming a key player in space exploration."

Prayers, parties, student shows planned in India for moon landing

Reuters
Tue, August 22, 2023 

 Prayer for successful launch of lunar exploration mission by ISRO in Mumbai

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Excitement rose in India on Tuesday on the eve of a much-anticipated moon landing, with prayers held for its success, schools marshalling students to watch a live telecast of the event and space enthusiasts organising parties to celebrate.

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is scheduled to land on the lunar south pole at 1234 GMT on Wednesday, days after the failure of a Russian vehicle trying to achieve the same feat.

Success for Chandrayaan-3 will make it the first to land on the lunar south pole, a region whose shadowed craters are thought to contain water ice that could support a future moon settlement.

India's second attempt to land on the moon after a failure in 2019 is being seen as a display of the tenacity of its scientific institutions.

Authorities and educators also hope it will encourage scientific inquiry among millions of students in the world's most populous country.

Students have sent scores of messages wishing ISRO luck for a successful landing, the agency said.

In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, the provincial government ordered all schools to hold special screenings as "landing of India's Chandrayaan-3 is a memorable opportunity, which will not only encourage curiosity, but will also instil passion in our youth towards inquiry".

In Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the science and technology council has invited over 2,000 school students "to witness the historic moment" on a large screen, its head Narottam Sahoo said.

The council has also organised talks by ISRO scientists. The event will be shown live across Gujarat's 33 district community science centres.

The state culture ministry in the eastern city of Kolkata is throwing a "Science Party" to celebrate the mission, asking people to "embark on exhilarating educational adventure" with a live telecast.

Hindu religious prayer ceremonies were organised on Tuesday in Mumbai and Varanasi cities for the success of the mission.

Srikant Chunduri, an entrepreneur and founder of a group of space enthusiasts called "Agnirva", said he has arranged a "watch party" for the landing at a popular Bengaluru restaurant.

"If we want to build a community for space enthusiasts, (there is) nothing more momentous than this landing to get people together," he told Reuters.

ISRO has been sharing regular updates of the mission through posts on X, formerly Twitter.

"The mission is on schedule. Systems are undergoing regular checks. Smooth sailing is continuing," it said on Tuesday.

"The Mission Operations Complex (MOX) is buzzed with energy & excitement!"

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bengaluru, Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow, Subrata Nag Choudhury in Kolkata, Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad, Sunil Kataria in New Delhi; Writing by Krishn Kaushik; Editing by YP Rajesh and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

LUNA TOO
Liquid gold? Why the world’s space leaders are rushing for a foothold at the lunar south pole

Art Raymond
Mon, August 21, 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

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 are now vying to be the first to do the same at the lunar south pole, but this time around are driven by a shared interest in one precious commodity.

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 has its own spacecraft in the neighborhood and the Indian Space Research Organization tweeted Sunday that its Chandrayaan-3 lander, which has been in lunar orbit since earlier this month, is scheduled for a landing near the moon’s south pole on Aug. 23.

If India successfully lands the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on Wednesday, it will own the distinction of first to land near the lunar south pole and join an exclusive group of countries that currently includes the U.S., Russia and China as the only nations to land a craft on Earth’s sole satellite.

While the failed Luna-25 and still orbiting Indian spacecraft 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.”

Why do all these countries want to go to the moon right now?

Jon Kelvey
Sun, August 20, 2023

NASA concept art of American astronauts on the moon.



On December 6, 1968, Time magazine published an issue with a metaphor illustrated on the cover: a Soviet cosmonaut and an American astronaut were in a sprint to the moon. The actual space race had kicked off a decade earlier, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in 1957. It ended less than a year after Time published its cover, when US Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. The excitement wore off quickly—the last humans to step foot on the moon, the crew of Apollo 17, did so in 1972. So far, no one has gone back.

But that’s changing. NASA is committed to landing astronauts on the moon again in 2025 as part of the space agency’s Artemis Program. China has plans to land humans on the moon by 2030. In the meantime, robotic missions to the moon are increasing: Russia's endeavor to return to the moon for the first time in 47 years, the robotic Luna-25 mission, crashed this week, and India hopes to make its first soft landing there on August 23 with its Chandrayaan-3 lander.

With so many nations headed for the moon, including an increasingly aggressive if diminished Russia, is the world at the cusp of a second space race?

The temptation to reach for the historical space race as a model is understandable, but as long as we're mapping history onto current events, it may not be the best guide, according to Cathleen Lewis, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museums curator of international space programs. “In my opinion, this isn't a new race,” she says. “If you want to use historical events, this is more of a gold rush.”

Or, more precisely, an ice rush. In 2018, scientists discovered water ice preserved in the deep, permanent shadows of polar craters. The US, China, Russia, and India are targeting portions of the lunar South Pole where that frozen resource should be. Water can be used to create rocket fuel or in lunar manufacturing. But it is heavy, and therefore expensive, to launch from Earth.

Space agencies “haven't quite worked out” how they are going to use this ice, or for “what technology to what end,” Lewis says. “But everyone wants to get there because we now know there is water ice to be found.”

[Related on PopSci+: A DIY-rocket club’s risky dream of launching a human to the edge of space]

But it’s not just about the ice. The technological basis for all of this activity is entirely different than in the mid-20th century, Lewis points out. Back then, the US and the Soviet Union were developing the technology to go to the moon for the very first time.

President Kennedy backed the lunar program because his advisors convinced him the race was technologically winnable, she says. While this competition had a destination, it also referred to the way “the USSR was racing to the maximum capacity of their technological limits.”

The Soviets had difficulty developing vehicles powerful enough to launch a crewed mission to the moon. The US created the Saturn V rocket, a singularly capable technology that was the most powerful ever launched until the first flight of NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in late 2022.

Today, multiple nations and even private companies have the technological capability to send spacecraft to the moon. Space itself is now more crowded, too, host to satellites tied into terrestrial economies: carrying communications, providing guidance signals, and observing agricultural water and other resources on the ground.

The goal is no longer to achieve technological superiority. Instead, nations are rushing to acquire existing technologies that are becoming a prerequisite for economic independence and affluence. “This is part of being in a world in a mature space age, that these are no longer optional programs, they're no longer pickup games, jockeying to see who's first,” Lewis says. “These are essential, existential programs for 21st century existence.”

[Related: China’s astronauts embark on a direct trip to their brand new space station]

In this sense, the current wave of moon programs are different from those in the past because they are more internally focused on economies, rather than serving as a non-military proxy contest between two superpowers. China, Lewis notes, has scaled its exploration of space to match its economic development over the past 30 years.

However, that’s not to say it will remain that way. The historical Gold Rush, after all, led to conflict over that valuable resource. Once enough players are regularly operating on the moon with regularity, the opportunities for disputes will increase.

“Who gets to choose what we do with the moon?” Lewis asks. “We haven’t sorted out issues about who has mining and drilling rights.”

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids nations from making territorial claims on celestial bodies, but permits using resources there. Whether that use includes mining materials to sell for a profit on Earth is less clear. “We haven't had to deal with that profit in space,” Lewis says. ”I'm glad I'm not an attorney who specializes in these sorts of things because it's a part of it that makes my head ache.”

But there may be plenty of time for space lawyers and diplomats to figure that out. Because, when it comes to the moon, even gold rushes move slowly. “We've seen missions fail,” Lewis says, such as India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission that crashed on the moon in 2019. “The moon is a lot easier than it was 60 years ago, but it's still difficult to get there.”

LUNA

Roscosmos names the reason for crash of Russian Luna-25 space station

Ukrainska Pravda
Mon, August 21, 2023




The Russian state corporation Roscosmos [Russia's government authority responsible for space projects – ed.] says that its Luna-25 space station fell to the surface of the moon and crashed because the engine did not turn off in time.

Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news agency RIA Novosti with reference to Yuriy Borisov, the head of Roscosmos

Quote: "Luna-25's engine did not turn off in time – it worked for 127 seconds instead of 84, which led to the accident."

Details: To justify the failure of the mission, Borisov stated that "due to the interruption of the lunar programs for 50 years, we have to re-master the technologies" and "no one can give guarantees".

However, Borisov added, "Russia definitely needs to participate in the lunar race".

Reminder:

  • Earlier, Roskosmos reported that the Luna-25 space station collided with the Moon and ceased to exist.

  • On 11 August, the launch of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with the first Russian lunar station Luna-25 in almost 50 years took place from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.


Russia's space agency head vows to continue Moon race

moon
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The chief of the Russian space agency Roscosmos on Monday advocated for Russia to stay in the lunar race, a day after announcing its mission had crashed.

"In no case should the lunar program be interrupted, that would be the worst decision," Yuri Borisov said in an interview on television.

The Luna-25  was meant to mark Moscow's return to independent Moon exploration in the face of financial troubles and corruption scandals and growing isolation from the West.

But on Sunday, Roscosmos announced the probe had crashed during pre-landing manoeuvres.

"Interrupting the lunar program for almost 50 years is the main reason for the failure" of Luna-25, Borisov said.

"The invaluable experience that our predecessors accumulated in the 1960s and 1970s was practically lost" during the interruption of the program, he added.

Borisov explained the crash was due to an issue with the spacecraft's correction engine.

The engine supposed to put the spacecraft into pre-landing orbit "worked for 127 instead of the planned 84 seconds. This was the main cause of the probe's ," Borisov explained.

A special commission has begun looking into the exact causes of the incident, Borisov also said.

Moscow last landed a probe—Luna-24—on the Moon in 1976, before shifting away from  in favor of missions to Venus and building the Mir space station.

© 2023 AFP

Russia's Luna-25 probe crashes on the Moon

Russia's Moon Lander Crashing Is a Catastrophe for Its Space Program


Victor Tangermann
Mon, August 21, 2023 



After many months of delays caused by the country's costly and reprehensible invasion of Ukraine, Russia's Luna-25 mission finally set off this month to return the country to the surface of the Moon for the first time in 47 years.

A lot was riding on the mission. The country's space program, Rocosmos, has already largely been cut off from the international space community due to Russia's belligerence, forcing it to blaze its own path.

But it wasn't meant to be. Luna-25 slammed into the lunar surface over the weekend, according to a brief Roscosmos update posted to Telegram — and that's a catastrophe for the credibility of the country's struggling space program, as modern-day Russia fails to follow up on the successes of the USSR.

According to a "preliminary analysis" by Rocosmos, the craft "switched to an off-design orbit" right before it crashed.


"During the operation, an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters," the state corporation wrote, as translated by Google. "The management team is currently analyzing the situation."

The demise of Luna-25 couldn't have come at a worse time for the space agency. With the International Space Station's days already numbered, the country's presence in space could soon be undermined.

Recent high-profile failures have even brought into question the dependability of Russia's number one space export, the Soyuz space capsule — especially with SpaceX swooping in with its reusable Dragon capsule, giving the US and much of the Western world a vendor to greatly cut their dependability on Russia for access to orbit.

And the situation has only gotten worse over the last couple of years. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has put considerable pressure on the country's space program, with former Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin fanning the flames by making unhinged threats squarely aimed at the US (adding to the general aura of madness, Rogozin was subsequently sent to Ukraine, where he was reportedly injured by shelling).

Roscosmos even went as far as to use its presence on the ISS to spread anti-Ukraine propaganda, a stunt that was met with outrage by NASA.

It's the unfortunate culmination of decades of largely peaceful US-Russia cooperation on board the aging orbital outpost, a relationship that's bound to change once the station is decommissioned via de-orbiting through controlled thruster fires at the end of this decade.

Even before its latest invasion, Russia's actions in space have raised many eyebrows among its collaborators.

A 2020 anti-satellite missile launch, for instance, caused a defunct Russian communications satellite to break into thousands of pieces, which could "endanger commercial satellites and irrevocably pollute the space domain," according to a statement by US Space Command commander James Dickinson.

"Russia has made space a warfighting domain by testing space-based and ground-based weapons intended to target and destroy satellites," Dickinson said. "This fact is inconsistent with Moscow's public claims that Russia seeks to prevent conflict in space."

In 2023, the fate of Roscosmos doesn't look much better. With a strained budget, a greatly reduced demand for its Soyuz capsule, glaring technical issues — the ISS was literally spun out of control due to Russian thrusters unexpectedly firing on more than one occasion — and canceled international space exploration collaborations, the ailing agency is desperately looking for new sources of revenue.

In the meantime, Russia's adversaries have made considerable steps towards returning astronauts to the Moon, with NASA successfully completing a flyby with its Orion spacecraft, setting the stage for the first crewed landing attempt since Apollo 17 in 1972.

China has also successfully sent three landers, including two rovers, to the lunar surface, becoming only the third country to softly land on the Moon ten years ago, following the United States and the Soviet Union.

While Russia and China have announced joint plans to establish a research station near the Moon's lunar south pole in the 2030s, it's anybody's guess whether those plans will end up panning out. Given the dramatic rise of its space program, China certainly has political and financial reasons to embark on the mission without Russia.

There are plenty of signs the relationship between the two nations is already strained, from awkwardly overlapping plans to explore the south pole to China actively looking for new international collaborators.

In short, the demise of the Luna-25 mission — which was meant to follow up on the Soviet Union's Luna-24 mission in 1976, the USSR's third successful sample return mission — is the last thing Russia's space program needs right now.

Over three decades following the dissolution of the USSR, Russia joins a growing number of countries that have launched lunar landing missions that unceremoniously crash-landed, including IsraelIndia, and Japan.

That's also in stark contrast to the country's lofty stated goals, from 3D-printed Moon bases to futuristic observatories designed to keep an eye out for dangerous asteroids.

Of course, Russia isn't simply giving up, and Luna-26 and Luna-27 missions are already in the works. But as Ars Technica points out, nobody really knows when they'll actually launch, given Luna-25's considerable delays.

In the longer term, whether the country still has a shot to revive its ailing space program and return it to its former Soviet Union-era glory is anybody's guess.

But the space race is already well underway — and Russia's already falling way behind.

More on Luna-25: Russia Sends Back Photos From Trip to Moon

Russia’s lander crashing into the moon may signal another shift in the space race, experts say

Jackie Wattles, CNN
Tue, August 22, 2023 

A Russian spacecraft malfunctioned over the weekend, sending the vehicle crashing into the moon. The failed landing attempt has experts questioning the future of the country’s lunar exploration ambitions and the geopolitical dynamics that underpin modern space exploration efforts.

The spacecraft, Luna 25, lost contact with operators at Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, on Saturday, August 19. By Sunday, the vehicle was declared dead.

Initial reports from the head of Roscosmos, Yury Borisov, indicate there was a problem with the vehicle’s engines, causing it to misfire as it attempted to adjust its orbit in the days before landing.

The failure was a major blow to the space agency’s ambitions. Russia had been seeking to prove that its civil space program, which analysts say has faced issues for decades, can still achieve the stunning feats it showcased during the 20th-century space race.

“Russia’s Cold War legacy will be just that — a legacy — unless they can actually do this themselves,” said Victoria Samson, the Washington office director for Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the peaceful exploration of outer space.

Under the former Soviet Union, Russia managed to safely land seven spacecraft on the lunar surface, including the first-ever soft landing in 1966.

Borisov acknowledged that the Soviet successes of last century weren’t easily repeatable.

“We have to essentially master all the technologies all over again — of course, at a new technical level,” he said during an interview with Russian state media on Monday.


This photo released by the Roscosmos State Space Corporation on August 17, shows an image of the lunar south pole region on the far side of the moon captured by Russia's Luna 25 spacecraft before its failed attempt to land. - Roscosmos/AP

Borisov has offered assurance that Roscosmos can get back on track. He said the space agency will accelerate its next two moon missions: Luna 26 and Luna 27, which could give Roscosmos all the science it lost with the failure of Luna 25.

Still, space policy experts question whether the Russian government has the power or the will to make that happen, particularly as the country faces sanctions around the war in Ukraine and Roscosmos appears to be of diminishing importance to the Kremlin.

“Even if they said they were going to continue (the Luna program), that doesn’t necessarily mean anything at this point. And the question is: Can they continue? Do they have the capability to continue it?” said Robert Pearson, a former ambassador to Turkey, former director general of the U.S. Foreign Service, and a founding member of Duke University’s Space Diplomacy Lab.

The consequence of this failure, Pearson added, is that on the global stage, it raises the question of whether Russia is “seriously in the space race” at all.
A changing civil space landscape

Russia’s failed moon landing attempt comes amid a rush of other lunar exploration efforts, largely designed by countries that haven’t been seen as traditional space powers. Luna 25 was flying alongside India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which will attempt to land on the moon as soon as Wednesday.

More than a dozen other countries also have plans for moon missions in the coming years, including the United States’ ambitious Artemis III, which could land astronauts on the lunar surface as soon as 2025.

“I think it … speaks to how much the cost of space exploration has dropped,” Samson said. “It’s still not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s gotten a little more reasonable. … I think that’s why more countries are able to (attempt) it.”

But while the loss of Luna 25 may widely be seen as a setback for Russia’s space ambitions, it’s worth noting that putting a spacecraft on the moon remains an exceedingly difficult feat.

India’s last attempt, with the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, failed. And two other commercial spacecraft have also crash-landed since 2019.

Perhaps different expectations were placed on Russia, however, because of its extensive Soviet-era experience.

If India’s space agency manages to safely land its spacecraft, Pearson added, it could “really outline the loss of prestige and influence and technological ability on the part of Russia.”

The mission was also closely watched because of how the country’s civil space program has been evolving. In recent years, Roscosmos has been beleaguered by issues with funding, quality control issues and suspected corruption, Samson noted.

The space agency has also faced blowback from Western nations since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The European Space Agency, for example, was set to work with Roscosmos on the Luna 25 mission as well as several future exploration endeavors, but Europe pulled out of the partnership after the invasion of Ukraine.

Now, questions are swirling around how Russia’s closest modern space partner — China — might react to Luna 25’s failure.

The two countries had announced they would work together to establish the International Lunar Research Station, a moon base to rival plans by the US and its allies to create a permanent lunar outpost under NASA’s Artemis program.

Samson noted that China, which is so far the only country to soft-land spacecraft on the moon in the 21st century, has already been downplaying Russia’s role in the program.

“I’m sure China must be really wondering what they saddled themselves with” after the Luna 25 mission, Samson said.

Still, Samson and Pearson both noted that Russia continues to play a key role on the international stage. The country is the United States’ primary partner on the International Space Station, though Russia previously threatened to pull out of that operation. For years, Russia was also the only country capable of getting astronauts to and from the space station after NASA retired its space shuttle program. (Today, SpaceX has taken over that function for the US.)
Why missions like Luna 25 matter

The Luna 25 spacecraft was intended to land on the moon’s south pole. It’s the same region where India is aiming to put its Chandrayaan-3 lander and where NASA plans to put its astronauts as well as future robotic missions.

The widespread interest in the moon’s south pole can be attributed to one key feature: water ice. Scientists believe copious amounts of water are stored near the south pole, frozen solid in shadowy craters.

Water ice could be immensely valuable for the future of space exploration. The precious resource could be converted into rocket fuel for missions that explore deeper into the cosmos or turned into drinking water for astronauts on long-duration missions.

“That is really the big driver for why we need to head to the south pole — and they’re in sort of part of a ‘Space Race Part Two,’” said Dr. Angela Marusiak, an assistant research professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, in an August 18 interview.

Because orbital dynamics make the south pole difficult to reach, it hasn’t been as deeply explored as other areas. That gives Russia and every other nation with lunar ambitions a key reason to go: There is clear scientific — and strategic — interest.

But Pearson questioned why Russia chose to head straight for the south pole for its first lunar mission in nearly 50 years.

“All they had to do was land (somewhere on the moon) and they would have shown the world that they were in the space race,” Pearson said of Russia. “They took a desperate measure — in my opinion — when they should have picked a safer option.”

Which countries reach the moon, and when, could have implications for how scientists make use of the data gathered.

Exactly how information sharing will work is not exactly clear.

India, for example, is a signatory of NASA’s Artemis Accords, a document mapping out agreed-upon rules for lunar exploration that includes a commitment to sharing scientific data.

Russia, on the other hand, is not a signatory.

But Samson cautioned against characterizing these lunar missions as a race, suggesting those involved are opponents. Though it’s difficult to know exactly what dynamics will arise, the moon is a big place — and there is room for everyone.

“My concern is that if we look at this in an aggressive, adversarial manner,” she said, “then we will generate the exact circumstance we’re trying to avoid.”