Chandrayaan-3 Lands Near the Moon’s South Pole

On August 23, 2023, the Indian Space Research Organisation achieved a historic milestone when the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-3 mission touched down on the Moon at approximately 69 degrees south latitude. The landing made India the fourth country to execute a controlled soft touchdown on lunar soil, following the Soviet Union, the United States, and China. More notably, it represented the first successful landing anywhere in the proximity of the rugged lunar south polar region.

The journey originated on July 14, 2023, with a launch aboard an LVM3 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Chandrayaan-3 was developed as a direct successor to the Chandrayaan-2 mission of 2019, whose lander crashed during its final descent after deviating from its trajectory. For the 2023 attempt, engineers introduced critical design revisions, including reinforced landing legs, expanded software contingencies, upgraded sensor suites such as laser Doppler velocimetry, and modified thrusters capable of actively controlling vehicle attitude throughout descent.