Moon landing missions are not having a good run-in recent time. Except for the Chinese all other attempts, including those by India and two by private companies since 2019 have all crashed onto the lunar surface.
The April 25 disaster faced by a Japanese company, iSpace (HAKUTO-R) notwithstanding, there are close to half a dozen attempts coming up in the second half of 2023, making it a hopeful and exciting phase in better understanding the Moon.
Leading this hope and perhaps the next to take off in the quest will be India with the Chandrayaan-3, scheduled in July. The country’s earlier attempt through Chandrayaan-2, with its Vikram lander had faced a disastrous end in July 2019.
In the history of Lunar Missions so far only the United States, Russia and China have managed to put a spacecraft on the lunar surface. All of them have been through government-sponsored programmes.
In April 2019, an Israeli company, SpaceIL had to watch its ‘Beresheet’ lander crash into the Moon’s surface. A few months later, in July India’s Chandrayaan-2, with its Vikram Lander too failed seconds after a hard landing.
Despite these setbacks, India is next in line to try while iSpace has announced more attempts soon. Two US companies, Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, are also firming up plans to land on the Moon, making it an exciting and hopeful year ahead.
These experiences demonstrate that landing on the lunar surface is no easy task. There are many lessons to be learned perhaps from these missions for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Its Chairman, S Somnath exudes confidence when he said recently that “The Chandrayaan-3 craft is fully ready. Some correction work is on. We are building a lot of confidence in the mission through lots of simulations and tests.”
According to the ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. It consists of Lander and Rover configurations. It will be launched by the GSLV MK3 or LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration till 100 km lunar orbit.
What will the mission do? There are 3 main objectives for the Chandrayaan-3 mission to demonstrate–safe and soft landing on the Lunar surface, to get the Rover moving on the Moon and conduct scientific experiments. They will be carried out by the Propulsion Module, the Lander Payload and the Rover.
The propulsion module has a Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and Polari metric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit.
The Lander payload consists of Chandraâs Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature; the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) for measuring the seismicity around the landing site; Langmuir Probe (LP) to estimate the plasma density and its variations. A passive Laser Retroreflector Array from NASA is accommodated for lunar laser ranging studies.
The Rover payload consists of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) for deriving the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site.
Japanese mission carried UAE hopes
On April 25, the Japanese company, iSpace (Hakuto-R) made a crash landing near the Atlas crater on the Moon. The spacecraft, whose name refers to the Moon-dwelling white rabbit of Japanese folklore, was launched by Elon Musk’s, Space X from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on December 11, 2022.
Among the several payloads and rovers it carried was the 10-kilogram, Rashid rover developed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The tiny Gulf nation, which tasted success in sending an Orbitter (HOPE) to Mars, was hoping to see the lander successfully roaming the lunar surface for two weeks and send back valuable images. But, their hopes were dashed.
The Rashid Rover was built by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), a Dubai government organisation working on the UAE space programme, which includes satellite projects, the Emirates Mars Mission, the Emirates Lunar Mission, and the UAE astronaut programme.
The MBRSC already operates the satellites–DubaiSat-1 & DubaiSat-2. It is also responsible for KhalifaSat, celebrated as the first satellite that was fully built by Emiratis in 2018.
Recently, the centre revealed its plan to develop the new satellite MBZ-SAT, which is expected to be launched at the end of 2023 and to be the latest in the field of high-resolution imaging from outer space, according to their website.
Referring to the challenges of lunar landings, Syed Maqbool Ahmed, Principal Payload scientist at XDLINX Labs, a space startup says “Reaching the moon itself involves complex maneuverabilities taking a week or so (though a powerful rocket can reach within a day). As the lander which is orbiting at 5,000 to 7,000 km/hr speeds try to reach the landing spot, it needs to bring it to a grinding halt. It is this operation where one fires “retro-rocket engines” to slow down the forward speeds and bring it down to a grinding halt. Moon does NOT have an atmosphere, hence no parachute can be handy. It is this holy grail where many human attempts have failed in the very recent past.”
Going back in space history the late 1950s saw the erstwhile Soviet Union trigger a race to the Moon with its first probe called Luna-2 touching down on the Lunar soil in 1959. However, the US built a strong Lunar Programme, Mission Apollo with full support from the Kennedy government. It succeeded in beating the Russians by landing the first human on the Moon in 1969. It was followed by at least 5 more cosmonauts landing by 1972. The Russians, though being the first to send a human into space did not land a human on Moon.
After the 1970s there was a lull on moon missions. The interest began again after 2000. This time around India, Japan and China showed keen interest, with the US renewing its programme a few years ago with an eye on Mars. While Chandrayaan in 2008 successfully sent the Orbitter and probe, which made the famous discovery of water on the lunar surface, it was only the Chinese who have been successful in landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019.
With powerful rockets like the Falcon of Space X speeding up the journey considerably and NASA, China, India, Japan, Russia, the European Space Agency and many nations joining in the exploration of outer space, its exciting times ahead for Space aficionados and researchers.
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