India has launched a spacecraft to the far side of the moon four years after a failed effort to land a rover softly on the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-3, meaning “moon craft” in Sanskrit, blasted off from a launch pad on the south-eastern island of Sriharikota with an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
It will take a month for the spacecraft to travel to the moon’s surface.
The spacecraft was cheered on by those within mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Centre and by thousands of people gathered outside who waved India’s flag.
“Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towards moon,” the director of the India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said shortly after the launch.
“Chandrayaan-3 scripts a new chapter in India’s space odyssey. It soars high, elevating the dreams and ambitions of every Indian,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet after the launch.
A successful landing on the moon would make India the fourth country – after the US, the Soviet Union and China – to achieve the feat.
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The Chandrayaan-3 will provide scientific data on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr Jitendra Singh, junior minister for science and technology.
India’s last attempt to land a spacecraft near the moon’s little-explored south pole failed in 2019.
It entered the lunar orbit but lost contact with its lander which crashed while making its final descent.
The failure was caused by a software glitch.
The £100m mission intended to study permanently shadowed moon craters, which are thought to contain water deposits and were confirmed by India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008.
The space mission is part of Mr Modi’s nationalist government’s campaign to show off India’s capabilities in security and technology.
The country’s space programme has helped develop satellite, communication and remote-sensing technologies and has been used to gauge underground water levels and predict weather.
Several countries and private companies are in a race to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface.
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A Japanese company’s spacecraft crashed while attempting to land on the moon in April.
An Israeli non-profit tried to achieve a similar feat in 2019 but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.