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India began its second attempt to reach the moon, after the first, with Chandrayaan-2 in 2019, and it ended in disappointment. But as Chandrayaan-3 prepares to begin its journey, that disappointment has been replaced by hope and optimism. For a month or more, a billion or more Indians will closely track the tortuous path that Chandrayaan-3 takes to get near the moon, and then as it attempts to make a soft landing sometime in the last week of August. The ISRO team added several mechanisms to avoid a situation of the kind that led to the Chandrayaan-2 crash on the moon.
As Chandrayaan-3 embarks on its journey, it is important to understand that the moon landing is just the beginning of larger space adventures for ISRO. There is no doubt that landing on the moon is a very important achievement in itself. After all, only three countries – the United States, China and Russia – managed to do this. But in the larger scheme of things, landing on the moon is just a milestone, a stepping stone to the bigger ambitions and dreams pursued by ISRO and many other space agencies around the world. The ability to make a safe and controlled landing on any planetary body opens new horizons in space exploration, science and space research. The Chandrayaan-2 failure and the pandemic have disrupted ISRO’s schedules a bit, but it’s not a huge setback. ISRO has many important tasks lined up next. Among them are Gaganyaan, the first Indian manned mission to space, a mission to study the Sun, and another mission to Venus. The success of Chandrayaan-3 is critical, of course, insofar as it will allow ISRO to build on it to deliver more ambitious missions. For several years in between, ISRO remained mired in routine and mundane, focusing primarily on satellite launches. Space exploration, science, and research missions were advancing very slowly. The opening of the space sector to private companies was intended to free up ISRO, allowing it to focus its energies and efforts on doing science, while filling in for private sector companies to provide more routine services. The goal of creating a space technology ecosystem was to expand the talent base and resources that could also help ISRO.
Due to the failure of Chandrayaan-2, and the intervening pandemic, the start of this new phase in ISRO’s life has been slow and a bit turbulent. Chandrayaan-3 has the potential to change that dramatically. Not only will it reaffirm ISRO’s position as one of the number one spacefaring nations, but it will also allow it to actively participate in more cooperative missions with other space agencies. The ISRO journey is about to begin.
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