 "Chandrayaan-3 to look for resources to sustain life on Moon: Space minister")
India’s prized moon mission, Chandrayaan-3, launched successfully on Friday and is expected to land on the moon's surface on August 23, 2023.
Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said that the Chandrayaan-3 will explore the possibilities of human habitat on the moon.
It will start its journey from the point where Chandrayaan-1 left, and in that process, it will look for resources that could sustain life on earth's natural satellite, says science minister Jitendra Singh.
The minister in his interview with Times of India (TOI), said, Chandrayaan-1 is altogether a different mission as compared to all other space missions.
In his interview, he mentioned that India started its space mission in the early 1960s, at that time America was already busy with the Apollo manned missions on the moon.
He added that America landed on the moon decades ago, but they had not found any evidence of water on the moon in the past.
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He also said that when Chandrayaan-1 found water on the moon, it started a new chapter on lunar space research. The minister shared the reason why we are going to the south pole to TOI; he said no country has ventured south pole, and we want to explore the unexplored.
“We have received images of dark craters on the moon, which hint that it could possess water. If Chandrayaan-3 finds more evidence of water, which consists of hydrogen and oxygen, it will open new scientific opportunities, says the Union Minister. He further said, if Hydrogen could be tapped from water it could be a rich source of clean energy. There are markers of possibilities that could be relevant to humans living on the moon that we are trying to explore from the mission.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft would be the first to land on the lunar south pole, the area has a special interest because of the presence of water ice that could support the future space station.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission cost India around Rs 615 crore, which is far lower compared to other nations. This is a testament to India's frugal space engineering.