On July 14, 2023, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its Chandrayaan-3 mission from Bengaluru. This flight represents the agency’s second attempt to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, following the crash of Chandrayaan-2 in 2019.
That earlier mission failed when its lander struck the lunar surface just before touchdown, preventing India from becoming the fourth nation to accomplish the feat. The new spacecraft carries the same core payload as its predecessor: a lander named Vikram and a rover called Pragyan. The mission plan remains essentially unchanged—execute a gentle descent, deploy the rover, and conduct scientific experiments over a two-week period.
What distinguishes Chandrayaan-3 are the engineering modifications made after the 2019 failure. ISRO engineers strengthened the landing legs, refined the onboard software, and increased the fuel supply.
They also ran hundreds of simulated landing sequences to test the revised design. ISRO operates under the Prime Minister’s office, with its chairman leading both the agency and the Department of Space. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, the organization has earned a reputation for achieving significant results with limited budgets.
The Chandrayaan-1 mission, launched in 2008, confirmed the presence of water ice on the Moon at a cost of roughly $80 million. By comparison, a single NASA Discovery-class mission can cost four times that amount.
The agency manages a fleet of imaging and communications satellites, operates the GAGAN and IRNSS navigation systems, and has sent probes to both the Moon and Mars. The Mars Orbiter Mission, launched in 2013, cost less than the film “Gravity” and successfully entered Martian orbit on its first attempt. Landing on the Moon, however, remains a more difficult challenge. Only the United States, the Soviet Union, and China have achieved it.
Israel’s 2019 attempt ended in a crash, Japan’s Hakuto-R lander crashed in April 2023, and Russia’s Luna-25 is scheduled for launch later this year. Chandrayaan-3’s target is near the lunar south pole, a region of high scientific interest.
Permanently shadowed craters there may contain water ice, which could provide fuel, oxygen, and drinking water for a future permanent base. No country has yet landed in this area. China’s Chang’e-4 touched down on the far side of the Moon, while all U.S. Apollo missions landed in the equatorial belt.
The south pole is more rugged and rockier, making it harder to navigate from orbit. The Vikram lander carries instruments to measure lunar quakes and heat flow, while the Pragyan rover will analyze soil composition.
Both operate on solar power and are designed to last one lunar day—approximately 14 Earth days. When the sun sets, the batteries will drain, and the hardware will freeze. ISRO has not announced a follow-up mission; Chandrayaan-4 is not on the schedule.
The agency is focused on the success of this attempt. A human spaceflight program called Gaganyaan is under development but has faced delays, with its first crewed launch originally planned for 2022 now pushed back.
The stakes for Chandrayaan-3 are clear: a successful landing would prove India’s capability, validate the post-2019 fixes, and open the south pole for future exploration. A failure would mean another cycle of analysis and redesign. The launch proceeded cleanly, placing the spacecraft into Earth orbit, where it will gradually raise its orbit over the coming weeks before heading toward the Moon.
The landing is scheduled for late August.
