An unmanned rocket launched by India entered the orbit of the Moon on Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has confirmed.
“Chandrayaan-3 has entered the orbit of the Moon,” ISRO wrote on Facebook, more than three weeks after its launch.
If the rest of the current mission goes according to plan, the rocket is expected to land near the Moon’s little-explored south pole between August 23 and 24.
The world’s most populous country, with more than 1.4 billion people, would then join the small club of countries that has successfully completed a controlled lunar landing, which currently includes only Russia, the United States and China.
Developed by ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 comprises a landing module named Vikram, which means “valour” in Sanskrit, and a rover, a mobile robot, named Pragyan, which means “wisdom” in Sanskrit and which will explore the Moon’s surface.
Chandrayaan-3 took much longer to reach the Moon than the manned Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.
The Indian rocket is much less powerful than the Saturn V, the rocket of the American Apollo lunar programme. It completed five or six elliptical orbits around the Earth to gain speed, before being sent on a month-long lunar trajectory.
Since the launch of a probe into orbit around the moon in 2008, India’s space programme has developed considerably.
In 2014, India became the first Asian country to put a satellite into orbit around Mars and three years later launched 104 satellites in a single mission.
By next year, India is expected to launch a three-day manned mission into orbit around the Earth.
India is striving to increase its share of the global commercial space market from its current 2% hold.
