India over the moon
First country to reach the lunar south pole l Fourth nation after Russia, the u.s., and China to successfully land on moon l flawless touchdown at 6.04 pm l landing process lasted 17 minutes Image of the Moon's surface captured by the Chandrayaan-3's Landing Module. BENGALURU: India on Wednesday scripted history in golden letters after recording the first-ever landing at the Moon’s south pole. With this landing, exactly at 6.04 pm, India also became only the fourth country to have soft-landed on the lunar surface after the US, the erstwhile Soviet Union, and China. Chandrayaan-3’s record-setting success comes four days after Russia’s lunar mission Luna-25 crashed on August 19, just two days before its scheduled touchdown near the lunar south pole attempting to be the first to do so. That record now lies with Chandrayaan-3 of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The Chandrayaan-3’s lander Vikram began its powered descent at 5.47 pm from an altitude of 30 km. It comp...