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Watch India’s historic Chandrayaan-2 mission land a spacecraft on the moon

Mathew Katz
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India is hoping to become the fourth nation make it to the moon when it attempts to land its Chandrayaan-2 robotic spacecraft on Friday afternoon — and you can watch the historic event live.

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India launched its mission to the moon in July, with its multiple robotic probes reaching lunar orbit in August. If everything works out well, the lander — which has been named Vikram — will fire up its engine and slowly fall to the moon’s surface at some point between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. PT on Friday, September 6.

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India’s space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), expects to begin live coverage of the landing at 12:40 p.m. PT, which you can livestream on YouTube. If the mission is a success, India will join an exclusive club: Only the United States, Russia, and China have landed on the moon so far.

The craft will land in the area of the moon’s south pole, and after a few hours, a rover will begin to explore the region in the hopes of learning more about it. Most importantly, it’s looking for signs of water — most likely ice — in the unexplored area. Along with an orbiter that will remain above the moon, the ISRO expects to operate the Chandrayaan-2 mission about a year.

“Through this effort, the aim is to improve our understanding of the Moon — discoveries that will benefit India and humanity as a whole,” the ISRO wrote about the mission on its website. “These insights and experiences aim at a paradigm shift in how lunar expeditions are approached for years to come — propelling further voyages into the farthest frontiers.”

Meet Vikram — Chandrayaan 2’s Lander!

This is India’s second mission to the moon — the ISRO launched Chandrayaan-1 in October 2008, though that spacecraft remained in orbit and took photos in order to map the lunar surface. If all goes well with Friday’s mission, India plans another mission, Chandrayaan-3, at some point in 2024.

India is the latest country to send a spacecraft to the moon, but it’s not alone. The United States, China, Russia, Japan, and Israel all have their own lunar missions in the works.

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Mathew Katz
Mathew Katz
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Mathew is a news editor at Digital Trends, specializing in covering all kinds of tech news — from video games to policy. He…
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