India moon landing – live updates: Chandrayaan-3 making historic bid to reach south pole of lunar surface

Key points:

India’s Chandrayaan-3 aiming to touch down on moon’s south poleNo country has ever landed a spacecraft in the regionRussian craft making same attempt crashed over weekend – and previous Indian mission failed in 2019South pole’s craters thought to contain water ice that could be used for fuel, oxygen, and drinking water – potentially supporting human baseRead more: All you need to know about today’s landingUpdates by Tom Acres, technology reporter, and Ollie Cooper, live reporter

11:34:48 In pictures: Lift-off!

This was the moment on 14 July that Chandrayaan-3 blasted off from India’s Andhra Pradesh spaceport on a LVM3 M4 rocket.

Rocket launches are always spectacular, no matter how many times you see them, and this was no exception.

11:23:14 Why did Russia’s recent attempt fail?

As we have already outlined, today’s attempted moon landing by India comes just days after Russian bid to pip them to it ended with a bang of the worst kind.

Moscow’s Luna-25, which like India’s Chandrayaan-3 is an unmanned robot lander, had been scheduled to become the first spacecraft to touch down on the south pole of the moon on Monday.

Yury Borisov, boss of Russian space agency Roscosmos, said its engines were turned on over the weekend to put Luna-25 into a “pre-landing orbit”, but they did not shut down properly and so it slammed into the lunar surface.

He blamed the country’s decades-long pause in lunar exploration, having not launched a moon mission since the days of the Soviet Union in 1976.

You can read more about the failed Russian mission below.

11:19:51 Today’s mission could be step on way to humans spending extended periods on moon

Only three nations – the US, China, and Soviet Union – have ever touched down on Earth’s satellite, though none have successfully made it to the south pole.

The difficulty of doing so was made clear over the weekend when a Russian craft crashed during its own bid, meaning the door remained open for India to set a new bar for moon exploration.

The graphic below shows where spacecraft have landed on the moon over the years – but also includes India’s failed attempt from back in 2019, very close to today’s target landing site. 

It’s thought the south pole’s shadowed craters contain water ice that could support a future base on the moon, allowing astronauts and scientists to work there for extended periods.

Space agencies including NASA have detected frozen water in the moon’s south pole craters before, but no country has ever actually ventured into the region.

If water ice is really there, it could be used for fuel, oxygen, and drinking water; and provide insight into past lunar volcanoes and the origins of our own oceans.

09:18:00 Hello there and welcome

India is bidding to make history today by becoming the first country to successfully land a spacecraft on the south pole of the moon.

Only three countries have landed on the lunar surface before – the US, Soviet Union, and China – and none have reached the region where Chandrayaan-3 is aiming to touch down.

Russia was hoping to beat India to it, but its effort ended in a crash at the weekend. India has also tried before, with Chandrayaan-3’s predecessor crashing on the moon in 2019.

Follow our live blog to see if they’re successful this time round – the landing is due to happen at around 1.30pm UK time.

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