Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft, which was supposed to land on the south pole of the Moon, crashed disastrously, ending the tight space race with Chandrayaan-3. Although everything seems to be going in order for the Indian spacecraft, one question that has been bothering many is whether the crashed parts of Luna-25 on the Moon, affect the landing of Chandrayaan-3 in any way whatsoever.
Is Chandrayaan-3 moon landing in danger?
Well, the answer is that the recent setback of Russia’s Luna-25 Moon mission will not affect ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar endeavor, reassured top Indian space scientists.
On August 20, Russia’s Roscosmos space agency reported that the Luna-25 spacecraft had crashed into the Moon after entering an uncontrolled orbit. K Sivan, who was at the helm of ISRO during the launch of the Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019, emphasized that this incident would have no bearing on ISRO’s lunar mission, reported PTI.
“It does not have any impact,” said Sivan when asked if ISRO was under added pressure following the Russian mishap. The Chandrayaan-3 mission, featuring a lander module carrying a rover, is scheduled to make a soft landing on the Moon around 6.04 pm on Wednesday, according to ISRO’s announcement.
Sivan further assured that the Chandrayaan-3 mission is going on as per plan. The soft landing will be done accordingly. Sivan said that ISRO is hopeful that this time (unlike Chandrayaan-2), the touchdown will be successful.
Scientists Speak
Former ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair while speaking to PTI dismissed speculations of a competitive race to the Moon between India and Russia. He characterized the Luna-25 crash landing as regrettable and shed light on the lander module’s history, stating, “I know the (lander) module. It was ready way back in 2008. When I visited the lab (in Russia), they showed me the module. They didn’t have the resources to fly then, so it had been kept in cold storage for a long time. Now, only they had resources to launch.”
Nair asserted that there would be no impact on the Chandrayaan-3 mission launched on July 14, emphasizing that India’s lunar venture is entirely self-sufficient. Currently, India’s space collaboration with Russia primarily focuses on training Indian astronauts for the Gaganyaan human space flight mission.
He also pointed out the potential for complementary data collection had Luna-25 successfully landed, as India and Russia could have shared and combined their data derived from lunar surface experiments.