India on Wednesday became the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon. “India is on the moon,” said S. Somanath, the chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), as the Chandrayaan-3 mission spacecraft touched down. The monumental achievement comes after Russia’s Luna-25 mission to the lunar south pole failed over the weekend as the lander crashed into the moon’s surface. Watching the landing from the BRICS summit in South Africa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the successful mission “a victory cry of a new India.” The mission is now expected to continue for another two weeks running scientific experiments on the lunar surface. India’s rover, named Pragyaan, will explore areas believed to contain water ice, which may eventually be useful in supporting a base for humans on the moon.
