Opinion | Chandrayaan Chronicles: India's Remarkable Lunar Triumph

Wow!

Indians are gripped by an indescribable euphoria encompassing joy, pride, confidence and ambition. Our successful Moon landing mission encapsulates these myriad sentiments. India has now firmly cemented its place at the high table of space exploration, being the very first to successfully carry out a soft landing on the South Pole of Chandrama, our enchanting and sweet celestial neighbour. Traditionally, the Moon has captivated the minds of the people in our culture. ‘Chandram bhaja manasa sadhu hridaya sadrisham,’ says a well-known musical composition. Who among us has not read Chandamama as a child, as our prime minister reminds us? Make no mistake—this would have been a colossal scientific challenge for any country in the world, and we have accomplished it. Hats off to the enormous ISRO team that has made it possible.

This is truly a historic milestone in our journey as an independent nation since 1947, and its importance, both in concrete and symbolic terms, can hardly be underestimated. Moon missions are high-profile endeavours fraught with significant financial, technical and reputational risks. We still need to see the outcome of the 14-day exploration of the lunar surface as Pragyaan roams around, and we await the spectroscopic and sub-atomic particle research results emanating from there.

Chandrayaan is important for India because it not only advances scientific knowledge and technological capabilities but also boosts national pride, inspires the youth, and opens up possibilities for economic growth and global collaboration in the field of space exploration.

Successful space missions enhance a country’s global reputation. India’s Chandrayaan missions have garnered international acclaim, elevating India’s standing in the global space community and fostering collaboration with other space agencies and organisations. Missions like this separate the experienced from the novices.

Chandrayaan will inspire a new generation of scientists, engineers, and students in India to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Such missions serve as a source of national pride and encourage young minds to contribute to the nation’s technological and scientific advancement.

The space industry has the potential to drive economic growth through technological innovation, job creation, and the development of commercial space ventures. Space is no longer just a scientific curiosity, but a viable economic venture that has already and will continue to revolutionize life on planet Earth. By investing in space exploration, we create opportunities for new industries and services.

As more countries explore space, being part of this space endeavour is important for maintaining India’s position as a global player in space technology and exploration. We have entered a select club of nations that have softly landed a module on the lunar surface, specifically on the unexplored South Pole of the Moon.

Developing and executing lunar missions requires advanced technological capabilities. Chandrayaan missions have driven our technological growth in space navigation, propulsion systems, remote sensing, and communication systems. Many of these technological advancements will percolate to other civilian and military uses. We have learned well from our lessons in previous missions and developed a perfect methodology for the soft landing.

Moon landings are very challenging due to a combination of factors related to the Moon’s unique environment and the complexity of space exploration.

A successful Moon landing requires overcoming challenges related to communication, navigation, gravity, terrain, temperature, resources, automation, and more. The complexity of these factors, combined with the high stakes and limited experience, makes Moon landings a daunting and difficult undertaking.

The Moon’s great distance from the Earth introduces a significant communication delay, making real-time control of the spacecraft during critical landing phases extremely difficult.

The Moon’s lower gravity compared to Earth poses challenges for navigation and control. The spacecraft must be precisely guided to ensure a safe descent and landing. The lack of a significant lunar atmosphere means there is no air resistance to slow down a spacecraft. This necessitates precise calculations and propulsion to slow down the descent and safely touch down on the surface.

The Moon’s surface is rugged and covered with craters, rocks, and uneven terrain. Identifying a safe landing site is crucial to avoid obstacles that could damage the spacecraft during landing or compromise the mission’s success. There are extreme temperature variations between its day and night sides. Lunar days can be extremely hot, while nights can be bitterly cold. Designing systems capable of withstanding these temperature extremes is a significant engineering challenge.

The economics of the space sector and rapidly changing technological standards mean that the focus of space agencies is shifting from satellite launches to solving the significant problems related to human habitation, extraterrestrial mining, and astrobiology. Furthermore, the military-industrial complexes of countries are aligning, resulting in both cooperation and competition in space research. India has received valuable assistance from NASA, especially regarding the landing stage of Chandrayaan-3. Control and militarization of space are established realities of today, even though space cannot legally belong to any country but is the collective heritage of all humankind.

Most importantly, humanity is incredibly resource-hungry. Resource use has tripled since 1970 and could double again by 2050 in a business-as-usual scenario. We would need 1.5 Earths to sustainably support our current resource use, and as resource use intensifies, both the ecosystem and humans will suffer tremendously. While talk of a circular economy and recycling exists, a parallel solution could emerge if we started extracting resources, such as water and rare earths, from beyond our planet. This has implications for manned space stations, commercial resource exploitation, and a space economy.

Chandrayaan signifies our entry into these critical and strategic areas of geopolitics. We have now left many countries behind. Our progression to Gaganyaan and Mangalyaan is only a matter of time. In a challenging field like space research, there will inevitably be failures and successes. This is why a clear success like Chandrayaan-3 is akin to winning an Olympic medal. The coming years will hopefully see us progress from bronze to gold!

The author is in the Indian Institute of Science and is the author of Bharat: India 2.0. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.