India will make its historic moon landing on Wednesday morning (August 23), and you can watch the action live.
The nation’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is expected to land near the moon’s south pole on Wednesday at around 8:34 a.m. EDT (1234 GMT; 6:04 p.m. Indian Standard Time, or IST). The success would make India the fourth country – after the Soviet Union, the US and China – to make a gentle landing on the moon.
Watch the touchdown test here at Space.com, courtesy of Indian Space Research Organization, or directly through ISRO. Planned coverage starts at 7:50am EDT (11:50 GMT; 5:20pm IST).
Related: At what time will India’s Chandrayaan-3 land on the moon? 23?
The Chandrayaan-3 mission has so far gone smoothly. The spacecraft was launched on July 14 and successfully entered lunar orbit on August 14. 5. In August On December 17, Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander separated from the module. its propulsion, setting the stage for Wednesday’s landing test.
That effort would come close to the moon’s south pole, which is thought to be rich in ice. No probes have explored the area on land yet, although Chandrayaan-3 will not be the first to test it. The Russian lander Luna-25 crashed on Saturday (August 19) while performing an engine burn in preparation for a landing test on Monday (August 21).
If Vikram lands on Wednesday, it will deploy a small rover called Pragyan to the gray land. The two robots will then study their surroundings for about a lunar day (about 14 Earth days), using a variety of scientific instruments.
Wednesday’s attempt will be India’s second moon landing attempt. The first, in 2019, was unsuccessful; The nation’s Chandrayaan-2 lander crashed during landing and hit gray soil.
However, Chandrayaan-2 was not a complete failure. The mission also sent an orbiter to the moon, which is still active today. In fact, Vikram has established two-way communication with the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, according to ISRO.
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