India’s south pole moon landing is big business for global space race

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For all the risks, for all that was riding on a successful landing, the descent to the moon’s surface was remarkably uneventful, if not exactly stress-free. The Vikram lander, part of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, dropped steadily on its thrusters to the rock below, slowed to a hover as it approached the ground, and finally came to a rest on the dusty terrain.

When confirmation came that the lander was down, anxiety in the control room gave way to cheers and applause. With the soft touchdown, India becomes the first country to land a probe at the moon’s south pole, a rugged region where deep craters lie in permanent shadow and where ice could provide water, oxygen and fuel for future missions. The first will be on the moon itself, and in lunar orbit, but they could also supply trips to Mars, with the benefit that the materials do not need to be lifted off the Earth’s surface at great cost. It is a region of key scientific interest.

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It may be half a century since the last Apollo mission, but landing on the moon remains a huge technical feat. India is only the fourth country to pull off a controlled landing on the surface, after the US, China and the former Soviet Union. That India chose one of the moon’s poles as its destination – a tougher prospect than landing near the equator – makes the success that much sweeter.

“Knowing that it can be done doesn’t make it easy,” said Prof Martin Barstow, director of strategic partnerships at Space Park Leicester. “Landing at the poles is much more difficult than landing at the equator. You’ve got to get into a polar orbit to release the lander and nobody has done that before. The US hasn’t landed anything at the poles on the moon.”

There is more to the achievement than the technical feat. The landing boosts the prestige of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) less than a week after a Russian probe spun out of control and crashed into the moon’s surface. The ill-fated Luna-25 mission was Russia’s first attempt to land on the moon in 47 years.

“This is an exciting moment for Indian space exploration,” said Prof Andrew Coates at UCL’s Mullard space science laboratory. “Following their earlier successful orbiters to the moon and Mars, this cements their position as one of the key spacefaring nations and is an impressive scientific and engineering achievement".

The prime minister, Narendra Modi, followed the landing from the Brics summit in South Africa and appeared on the Indian space agency’s live stream with a message for the world. “India is on the moon,” he said, adding that all countries, including those from the global south, were capable of such missions. “The sky is not the limit.”

The landing raises India’s profile as a spacefaring nation at a crucial time. Like other countries, India has privatised its rocket launches. Through foreign investment, India plans to expand its share of the global launch market fivefold over the next decade. That ambition will be helped by India being seen as a low-cost provider of space launch services.

There will certainly be demand. The global space launch market is expected to grow from $9bn (£7bn) this year to more than $20bn in 2030. Beyond satellite launches, big space agencies including Nasa, the European Space Agency, Russia and China are gearing up for a return to the moon, a long-term commitment that involves building a moon-orbiting space station and lunar habitats for astronauts to live in. “There’s so much that needs to be done that no one country can do it all,” said Barstow. “There will be a place for many countries in going back to the moon.”

India’s south pole moon landing is big business for global space race

India has raised its spacefaring profile and will now be seen as low-cost provider for missions possible

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Why the global race for the lunar south pole?

Unlike the equator region of the Moon, where many lunar exploration missions had been sent by several space-faring nations like the US, erstwhile Soviet Union and China, the south pole region has mostly remained a virgin territory. The region has only been pictured from an altitude by orbiters of several countries over the years like the Lunar Orbiters, Clementine, Lunar Prospector, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Kaguya, and Chandrayaan-1 probe and Chandrayaan-2 orbiter. These orbiters had been able to establish the fact that the region is suitable for a lunar outpost from where distant interplanetary programmes could be launched.

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The lunar south pole, which is the southernmost point on the Moon at 90°S, is of special interest to scientists because of the occurrence of water ice in permanently shadowed craters. The region is also rich in minerals. Water and minerals are resources for future explorers. Secondly, the south pole region features craters that are unique in that the near-constant sunlight does not reach their interiors. Such craters are cold traps that contain a fossil record of hydrogen, water ice and other volatiles dating from the early solar system, which could help scientists learn more about the history of our solar system.
Thirdly, the mountain peaks near the pole are illuminated for large periods of time and could be used to provide solar energy to an outpost. With an outpost on the Moon, scientists will be able to analyse water and other volatile samples dating back to the formation of the solar system.

Nasa scientists used LOLA (Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter) to provide an accurate topographic model of the Moon. With this data, locations near the south pole at Connecting Ridge, which connects Shackleton Crater to the de Gerlache crater, were found that yielded sunlight for 92–95% of the time based on altitude ranging from 2 m to 10 m above ground. At the same spots, it was discovered that the longest continuous periods of darkness were only for 3 to 5 days.

Fourthly, the lunar south pole is a place where scientists may be able to perform unique astronomical observations of radio waves under 30 MHz. The Chinese Longjiang microsatellites were launched in May 2018 to orbit the Moon, and Longjiang-2 operated in this frequency until July 31 2019. Before Longjiang-2, no space observatory had been able to observe astronomical radio waves in this frequency because of interference waves from equipment on Earth. Though facing Earth, the lunar south pole has mountains and basins, like the south side of Malapert Mountain that are not facing Earth and would be an ideal place to receive such astronomical radio signals from a ground radio observatory.

Solar power, oxygen, and metals are abundant resources in the south polar region. By locating a lunar resource processing facility near the south pole, solar-generated electrical power will allow for nearly constant operation. Elements known to be present on the lunar surface include hydrogen, oxygen, silicon, iron, magnesium, calcium, aluminium, manganese and titanium . Among the more abundant are oxygen, iron and silicon. The oxygen content is estimated at 45% (by weight).
Nasa’s Artemis programme has proposed to land several robotic landers and rovers in preparation for the 2025 Artemis 3 crewed landing at the south polar region. It will study the data from the Chandrayaan-3 landing mission to finetune its mission parameters. Blue Origin is planning a mission to the south polar region. Likewise Russia and China are also likely to send more missions to the south pole in near future.

Why the global race for the lunar south pole? | India News - Times of India

India News: The lunar south pole has become important due to its potential for scientific research and resource exploration. The region contains water ice in perm

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