The first Indian probe sent to the Moon has successfully reached the south pole of the Earth’s satellite. Miguel Gonçalves, astronomer and popularizer of science, believes that this is a day that will go down in history.
“Today is the day that the fourth nation from planet Earth landed on the Moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union and China. We are talking about 69 degrees south, therefore already very close to the south pole of the Moon, which The lunar Eldorado is becoming more and more, from a scientific and technological point of view, because we already know that it has a lot of ice and water.This is fundamental, both for rockets and for the longer stays of humanity, but, in fact, this is the first success, that is, they apparently landed without problems, successfully, the so-called soft landing Now there are a whole series of milestones, also engineering, that must be ensured, namely that the lander that has just landed can open completely, that it will be able to deploy, take out from its own interior, from its womb, so to speak, a small rover that is also described and docked in this mission, then we will see what the scientific journey of this mission will be, which will last approximately 14 days,” he explained to TSF Miguel Goncalves.
The expert argues that India can have a lot to gain from this lunar mission.
“Going to the Moon is also, who knows, helping to improve our conditions here on Earth a bit. India has taken this step, it’s a great day for India and it should be noted that this has taken place at a time when The BRICS meeting is taking place and, therefore, we also have here a milestone in the affirmation of Indian technological power. Let us also remember that this mission cost “only”, in quotes, 90 million dollars, that is, India has been notable in creating space missions with remarkable success and at a price well below what other space agencies invest.India, until recently, was present in the orbit of Mars.It is a great day for India.It is no coincidence that today we are “We see on Indian television the Indian Prime Minister using space space precisely for this geopolitical statement,” added the astronomer.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called today, when India became the first country to land a probe on the lunar surface near the South Pole, “a historic day.” The Hindu nationalist, who is in South Africa to attend the summit of leaders of the BRICS (a group of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), paused in his participation to follow the moment of the landing.
The Chandrayaan-3 unmanned spacecraft, launched on July 14 with the country’s largest and heaviest rocket, took 40 days to travel and landed this Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. (Lisbon time) near the South Pole of the Moon, never before previously explored.
The landing module has an exploratory vehicle (rover) inside that will soon begin its journey to collect information and samples from the surface.
India was the first Asian nation to orbit Mars in 2014. The Indian Space Research Organization hopes to launch a three-day manned mission to Earth orbit next year.
Source: TSF
