India aims to land spaceship on the Moon

NEW DELHI: An Indian spacecraft is set to attempt something no other mission has achieved before: making a soft, controlled landing in the moon’s south polar region.

If all goes well, the robotic lander Vikram—part of the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-2 mission—will touch down on the moon, marking a milestone in the exploration of our closest celestial neighbor.

Ahead of the scheduled landing between 1:30-2:30 am Saturday Delhi time (2000-2100 GMT Friday), the mission is important for future lunar and space exploration — including Mars. “Even though we got a successful lunar orbital insertion, landing is the terrifying moment,” Kailasavadivoo Sivan, ISRO’s chairman, said in a press conference. “The powered descent ... that is a first to us.” In addition to setting a global first, a successful landing would make India just the fourth country to touch down anywhere on the lunar surface, and only the third nation to operate a robotic rover there.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will monitor the landing’s after-effects, such as whether gases from Vikram’s exhaust plume build up in the moon’s tenuous exosphere, notes Dana Hurley, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

Until the landing attempt, all she and the world’s other lunar scientists can do is hold their breath—because they know all too well what can go wrong. “We’re always excited and nervous, because we know it’s very hard to do,” Hurley says. “It’s a tough business.”