While preparing for Chandrayaan-3’s landing on the Moon, the Indian spacecraft captured a beautiful video of the Moon as it completed its first orbital insertion earlier this month.
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Despite being so close to our own planet, the Moon is actually one of the most difficult places to land a spacecraft, something that several countries have learned the hard way. In fact, less than half of all missions to land uncrewed spacecraft on the Moon have failed for several reasons.
While Indie has completed several orbital insertions at this point, the country has failed to put its spacecraft safely on the ground. Chandrayaan-3 is just the latest attempt to make this happen, and so far, things seem to be going well, with the spacecraft completing the first step of its journey earlier this month.
The Moon, as viewed by #Chandrayaan3 spacecraft during Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) on August 5, 2023. #ISRO pic.twitter.com/xQtVyLTu0c
— . (@chandrayaan_3) August 6, 2023
During that first step of the journey, Chandrayaan-3 actually captured a very beautiful video of the Moon slowly zooming up to meet the spacecraft. You can see the video, which was captured by the spacecraft on August 5 above, for a good look at just how close it is coming to the surface during these orbital insertions.
But, why is it difficult to land an unmanned spacecraft at the surface of the Moon? Well, a lot of that comes down to the fact that our Moon doesn’t have a thick atmosphere. The atmosphere is so thin that it does not create any drag, which would help spacecraft slow down as they approach.
That’s why these orbital insertions are so important and why Chandrayaan-3’s landing on the Moon this year requires so many small movements to put it into the correct orbit, allowing it to slow naturally as it descends closer to our lunar satellite.
But there is more to do. India has had successful orbital inserts before. If it really wants to stick this moon landing, it will need to make sure that each consecutive orbital insertion goes according to plan and that the spacecraft is able to slow enough before making its final approach.
With the second moon race underway and many countries racing to place new spacecrafts on the Moon it is only a question of time until India succeeds. All we can do now is wait and see if this is that time or if that chance will come later, perhaps after NASA’s Artemis III mission finally returns humans to the Moon’s surface.
The post India’s Chandrayaan-3 captures breathtaking video of Moon as it prepares for landing appeared first on BGR.
