India's time has come. This Wednesday, what wants to be the leading emerging 'low cost' space power will try to become the first nation to successfully land an unmanned spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon, the new 'promised land' in which new generations of astronauts will arrive in the coming years. And all after Russia failed in the same feat just three days ago. The Chandrayaan-3 mission, which means 'moon ship' in Sanskrit, will test a soft landing at 2:30 p.m. Spanish time. It is not an easy task: it is a complicated area and India still has the previous attempt in 2019 in its memory, when it lost communication with Chandrayaan-2 just before beginning the last maneuvers. Related News standard Yes India aspires to become the fourth country to reach the Moon Pablo M. Díez After the failure of the Russian mission, its probe will try to land on the lunar south pole tomorrow But they are optimistic. The former head of the Indian space program, K. Sivan, told AFP that the latest photos transmitted by the probe indicated that the final phase of the journey was going to be successful. "It is giving us encouragement that we will be able to achieve the moon landing without problems," he said Monday. Sivan added that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had corrected the errors of four years ago, when scientists lost contact with the lunar module shortly before landing. "Chandrayaan-3 will go with more vigor," he assured. "We are confident and hope that everything goes smoothly." A journey of more than a month The mission took off almost six weeks ago in front of thousands of excited onlookers, but it has taken much longer to reach the Moon than the ships of the American Apollo program and the crashed Russian probe, whose trip lasted just a month. week. The reason: reduce costs. India uses less powerful rockets, so they must orbit the Earth several times to gain speed relying on gravity before heading to the satellite. The Vikram ('courage' in Sanskrit) landing module separated from the propulsion module last week and has been sending back images of the lunar surface since entering orbit on August 5. A day before the moon landing, ISRO said that everything was going according to schedule. "Navigation continues without problems," the agency said on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter. MORE INFORMATION news No China observes, for the first time, structures hidden 300 meters below the surface on the far side of the Moon news No This is what Eurasian couples were like 3,800 years ago: monogamous and they lived less Sivan, the former head of ISRO, He said Indian exploration of the relatively unknown south pole of the Moon will be a "very, very important" contribution to scientific knowledge. If this is achieved, the country will become the fourth to land on the moon on our satellite and the first to set foot on the lunar south pole, a place much more rugged than the areas where NASA's Apollo Program landed, but much more juicy from the start. scientific and human point of view, since it is thought that there are large reserves of water here in the form of ice, which could be key for the next human settlements.
