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The space race was still a thing when I was a kid but it hasn’t been for much of the last 45 years. But that’s starting to change as Russia, India, China and the US all gear up for various missions to the moon. In fact, both Russia and India have lunar landers touching down next week. Russia’s Luna-25 lander could touch down as soon as Monday, August 21. It’s the country’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century, and the first in the post-Soviet era. Two days later, on August 23, Chandrayaan-3 could become India’s first successful lunar...

It’s been touted as a race to the lunar south pole, but there's much more to India's and Russia’s moon shots than who lands first. India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander launched on July 14 and entered lunar orbit on Aug. 5. It is currently lowering its orbit in preparation for a landing attempt that's expected to occur on Aug. 23. Meanwhile, Russia is making its first visit to the moon since 1976, when its Soviet-era sample return mission dubbed Luna-24 took place. Luna-25 launched on Aug. 10 and, having taken a more direct route to the moon, could make a landing...

As humans here on planet Earth delighted themselves with the sight of the rare ‘super blue moon’ in the skies, the Indian Lunar Mission continued with the scientific experiments on the Moon’s South Pole. The Chandrayaan-3 mission now is divided between the Vikram Lander and the Pragyan Rover, each with a different task. The rover is circling around the touchdown area, analyzing the chemical elements present on the dusty surface of the moon, as it searches ice-water that would greatly benefit future human exploration in the area. Meanwhile, the lander and its probes record seismic activity on the satellite’s surface,...

India made history on Wednesday after their Chandrayaan-3 mission landed safely on the moon’s south pole, cementing itself as the first nation to successfully touch down on the largely unexplored region of the lunar surface. “All the people of the world, the people of every country and region: India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone,” said India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reiterating that “this success belongs to all of humanity.” But even with Modi’s broad, pseudo-inspirational attribution, not everyone was excited to take credit for the scientific feat — namely, the conspiracy theorists of Reddit who were irked...

Chandrayaan-3, the latest iteration of India’s ambitious mission to the moon, has successfully landed on the lunar surface — making history after its predecessor failed in 2019. The landing, which took place at the targeted time of 5:34am PT (6:04pm IST) on Wednesday over a month after the spacecraft’s launch, has made India the fourth nation globally to make a soft landing on the moon, after the former Soviet Union, the U.S. and China, and the first country to land on the lunar south pole, which remains an unexplored area that is anticipated to aid in the understanding of the...

Chandrayaan-3 Lunar Landing Coverage LIVE! This site goes live in 40 minutes

This is live coverage, in English, of the Indian moon landing scheduled within the hour. If successful it will be the first touchdown on the Lunar South Pole.

Chandrayaan-3 has made a successful touchdown on the moon! This story is developing.

BENGALURU, Aug 23 (Reuters) - An Indian spacecraft landed on the moon on Wednesday, the space agency said, in a mission seen as crucial to lunar exploration and India's standing as a space power, just days after a similar Russian lander crashed. For India, the successful landing marks its emergence as a space power as the government looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.

India's space agency has released the first images of the Moon taken by the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which entered lunar orbit on Saturday. The images show craters on lunar surface getting larger and larger as the spacecraft draws closer. Chandrayaan-3's lander and rover are due to reach the surface on 23 August. If successful, India will be the first country to perform a controlled "soft landing" near the south pole. It will also become only the fourth to achieve a soft landing on the Moon after the US, the former Soviet Union and China. After the spacecraft orbited the Earth for...

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