Indijas Mēness Lander Vikrams (ar roveru Pragjana) of Chandrayaan-3 mission has safely soft landed at high latitude Mēness surface on south pole along with respective payloads. This is first Mēness mission to land on high latitude Mēness south pole where presence of water/ice is confirmed.
Chandrayaan-2 mission had earlier failed to achieve Mēness soft landing when its lander had crash landed on Mēness surface on 6th September 2019 due to technical snag.
With successful technology demonstration of Mēness soft-landing capability, ISRO moon exploration mission has achieved an important milestone towards its future starpplanētu missions. India has thus become fourth country in the world (after USA, former USSR and China) to have “Mēness soft landing” capability.
Recently, Russian Mēness lander mission Luna-25 attempted soft landing on moon’s south pole on 19th August 2023 but unfortunately crash landed and failed. However, Russian authorities announced to remain in Mēness race. Russian Mēness programme had a long pause. Their last successful Mēness mission was in 1976 when Luna 24 of Soviet Union had successfully returned Mēness samples to the Earth.
After a long pause since Appolo 17 mission in 1972, USA’s NASA is to embark on its ambitious Artemis Moon Mission designed to establish human presence on moon towards the objective of deep telpa human habitations on marts.
Both USA and Russia (as successor of USSR) are long established players in telpa technology. Their highly successful lunar missions achieved key milestones over half a century ago and have remained shelved since mid-seventies until recently.
Ķīna un Indija ir salīdzinoši jaunas ienācējas (salīdzinājumā ar ASV un Krieviju). Ķīnas Mēness programma sākās 2007. gadā, palaižot Chang'e 1. Viņu Mēness misija Chang'e 3 demonstrēja mīkstās nosēšanās spēju 2013. gadā. Ķīnas pēdējā Mēness misija Chang'e 5 sasniedza parauga atgriešanas spēju 2020. gadā. Pašlaik Ķīna ir procesā. par apkalpes Mēness misijas uzsākšanu. No otras puses, Indijas Mēness programma sākās 2008. gadā ar Chandrayaan 1 misiju. Pēc 11 gadu pārtraukuma Chandrayaan 2 tika palaists 2019. gadā, taču šī misija nevarēja sasniegt Mēness mīkstās nosēšanās spēju.
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