“Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended”, ~Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

After a series of strenuous efforts of qualified and esteemed scholar scientists of ISRO, Chandrayan-3 has successfully touched the land of Moon. 23^rd August, 2023 will be written in golden words forever after such a truly tremendous and victorious success.  With this unbound success India became the 4^th nation after the US, China and Russia to touch the land of Moon and the first to explore its south pole. Indian scientists have given back all those age-old droplets of blood, tears, and excruciating burning wounds of colonialism and challenged the developed nations by this prodigious success and proudly unfurled the tri-colored flag on the land of Moon.

 “The exploration of Moon through Chandrayan will electrify the entire country, particularly young scientists and children”

These lines were spoken by the ‘Missile Man of India’ Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam after he came to know about ISRO is organizing a mission to the moon. The Chandrayan program is also known as ‘Indian Lunar Exploration Program’, which is an ongoing series of outer space missions by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the exploration of the Moon. The series started with Chandrayan-1, which was launched on 22^nd October 2008 aboard PSLV-C11 launch vehicle, which was kept inside the spacecraft and successfully landed on moon and widened the door between the Earth and its beloved satellite and owing to this India became the 4^th country to hoist its tricolor flag on the south pole of Moon. Chandrayan-1 mission was started on Nov 2008, and continued through 312 days and the following year they declared that the mission was over due to few technical glitches. It was an unmanned spacecraft weighing 1380-Kg along with 11 scientific payloads built in India, UK, US, Germany, Bulgaria and Sweden. The mission launched from Srihari Kota, Andhra Pradesh has successfully unveiled the position of widely spread water molecules on moon’s surface. The estimated cost of the spacecraft was $48 million.

Chandrayan-2 was designed to expand the lunar scientific knowledge through detailed study of topography, seismography, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition, thermo-physical characteristics of top soil and composition of the fragile lunar atmosphere, leading to a new understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon and to look for signatures of hydroxyl and water ice. The name of the lander was Vikram which was set to land at the 70-degree latitude over the south pole of moon and the orbiter revolved around the moon at an altitude of 100 km. The rocket through which it was launched was LVM3-M1 along with its rover called Pragyan. Everything was perfect and the 140 crore Indians were awaiting to be a part of this magnificent mission, but unfortunately, just before landing the lander crashed into the surface due to few technical glitches and anomalies in the braking system and the communication was detached at an altitude of 2.1 km from the surface and the golden mission became unsuccessful.

Chandrayan-3 is the immediate successor of Chandrayan-1 and Chandrayan-2. The spacecraft was weighing 3900 kg during the launch and having Pragyan as rover and Vikram as lander just like Chandrayan-2 was costing nearly $75 million.  Eminent organizations like Tata Elxi Ltd, Tata Steel, L&TLtd, MTAR Technologies Ltd, Bharat Electronic Ltd, Hindustan Aeronautic Ltd, Centum Electronics Ltd has invested in this victorious mission. While Chandrayan-1 unveiled the presence of water molecule, Chandrayan-2 was successful in orbiting over the south pole of the Moon but could not land over it and Chandrayan-3 became successful to carry out the laborious tiresome efforts of those sleepless nights of all the associated scientists. Owing to this remarkable mission ISRO made its permanent footprints on the land of South Pole Moon and became the ‘Pioneers of Space’.

“Success might need your time, effort, perseverance and dedication, but it should not restrain you from Dreaming”

According to ISRO the orbiter of Chandrayan-2 can talk to Vikram Lander of Chandrayan-3 now as it is still orbiting the moon. Chandrayan-3 was launched by LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. Chandrayan-3 spacecraft is consisted of indigenous Lander Module (LM), Propulsion Module (PM) and a Rover for developing and demonstrating new technologies required for Inter planetary missions. This historic success has widened the doors of research on features, and environment of Moon’s little explored south pole and paved the way towards India’s Global reputation. The solar powered lander and rover will observe and research the moon thoroughly in following two weeks and transport the data on Earth.

This historic success has undoubtedly put a golden feather in the hat of success for India, and we should owe to those qualified hard working and effortlessly wonderful inventions of Indian Scientists for bringing the tears of pride to the eyes of every Indian citizen. A mere third world country, which was once captured by few European nations like British, French, Portuguese, and got exploited in the dreadful hands of manipulative, barbaric, inhuman politics, is now stepping into the moon, launching spacecraft, competing neck-to-neck in the global market without leaving a single inch to anyone. The neglected country whose economy was tottering feebly, today it was declared as the third wealthiest country.This is our India, our Incredible Motherland!!