Skip to main content

Watch the moment when India achieves historic moon landing

India has made history by becoming the first nation to land near the lunar South Pole — and only the fourth country to perform a successful soft landing on the moon.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission achieved the feat in the early evening local time on Wednesday after its Vikram lander module touched down on the lunar surface as planned. Engineers at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) are now checking that Vikram’s systems are in good working order.

The tense final moments of the lander’s descent were live-streamed from Mission Control in Bengaluru, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also part of the broadcast as he watched events unfold. You can watch the final moments of the mission in the video below

Chandrayaan-3 Mission Soft-landing LIVE Telecast

“India is now on the moon,” Modi said in an address shortly after the successful lunar landing, adding that the mission’s success “belongs to all of humanity” and was “not just India’s alone.”

Only the U.S., China, and the former Soviet Union have succeeded in the challenging task of nailing a soft landing on the surface of our nearest neighbor. Russia failed in an attempt just a few days ago, while India fell short in another effort four years ago.

The lunar South Pole is of great scientific interest as it’s believed to hold water ice, an important resource that could aid future crewed missions to the moon. NASA is also planning to explore the region in a future mission.

As the Indian nation celebrates becoming part of an exclusive club, the Vikram lander will soon deploy a small rover called Pragyan that will use an array of scientific instruments to explore its surroundings before beaming back its discoveries.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
How to watch India attempt to join exclusive moon-landing club
space based solar power earths moon nearside

Chandrayaan-3 Mission Soft-landing LIVE Telecast

India is about to make a bold attempt to land a module on the moon.

Read more
With its moon lander, India hopes to succeed where Russia just failed
The Indian Space Research Organization's lunar lander for the Chanrayaan-3 mission.

India is just a couple of days away from attempting a historic soft landing on the moon, which, if successful, would see it join an elite club alongside the U.S., China, and the former Soviet Union.

This week’s attempted touchdown will come just a few days after Russia’s Luna-25 mission ended in failure when the spacecraft crashed onto the lunar surface in the country’s first moon mission since 1976.

Read more
Indian spacecraft snaps images of the moon’s surface ahead of landing attempt
Chandrayaan-3 Mission: View from the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1 on August 17, 2023 just after the separation of the Lander Module from the Propulsion Module.

An Indian spacecraft that is approaching the moon's south pole recently snapped images of the lunar surface. The images, shared by Indian space agency ISRO, show the view on approach from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft shortly after it entered orbit around the moon.

The mission, launched last month, aims to set down an uncrewed lander near the lunar south pole -- a never-before-landed-on region but one which a growing number of space agencies including NASA have plans to explore more in the coming years. The Indian mission has also grabbed public attention as it is seen as being in a head-to-head race with a Russian moon mission, Luna-25, which launched earlier this month.

Read more