Chandrayaan-3: Why is it so difficult to land on the Moon?

With the Chandrayaan-3 mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will try a soft landing on the Moon once more. The mission is slated to launch from Sriharikota at 2.30 PM on July 14. The endeavour is still fairly challenging even though humans first set foot on the Moon more than 50 years ago.

When the Vikram lander collided with the Moon's surface in September 2019, the Chandrayaan-2 mission was declared a failure. A similar outcome befell the Israeli-led Beresheet mission earlier that year. Years later, in April of this year, the Japanese Hakuto-R mission similarly failed to make a soft landing on the moon. And these are just a few of the numerous missions that tried and failed to reach the Moon. The United States and the Soviet Union crashed spacecraft after spacecraft during the space race in the 1960s before successfully landing one. With the Chang'e-5 mission in 2013, China became the only other nation to successfully perform a soft landing on the Moon.

But why is Luna still such a challenging goal after all these years of space travel? Let's investigate that.

How to reach the Moon

You will need to find out a way to travel there before you can even consider landing on the Moon. The distance between the Moon and Earth is typically 3,84,400 km, however it can vary greatly depending on the spacecraft's course. On this long, lengthy journey, anything can go wrong.

And it holds true even for missions that only aim to orbit the Moon. Due to a propulsion system malfunction, NASA was forced to end the Lunar Flashlight mission before it could enter the lunar orbit.

On the Moon, a lull

The Earth's dense atmosphere provides enough friction for spacecraft returning to our planet, like NASA's Orion following the Artemis 1 mission, to slow down before safely touching down. However, due to its relatively thin atmosphere, spacecraft landing on the Moon do not enjoy that privilege.

How to navigate the Moon

It goes without saying that the Moon lacks GPS. Because there are no satellites on the Moon, spacecraft cannot rely on one to precisely land at a specific point. This means that in order to arrive on the Moon precisely, onboard computers will need to make speedy calculations and judgements.

According to a paper in the journal Nature, things get particularly tricky when a spaceship approaches the vital final few km. The computers on board will then need to autonomously respond to unforeseen problems fast. For instance, the significant amount of dust the propulsion systems generate may fool sensors.

Additionally read the latest ISRO India Chandrayaan 3 mission updates: Success of the first orbit-raising manoeuvre for Chandrayaan-3

According to Chandrayaan-3, the first orbit-raising manoeuvre was successfully carried out.

'Chandrayaan-3' is launched by ISRO's Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3) M4 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Observe this space Future Chinese rocket Chandrayaan-3, and a historic week ISRO Live telecast of the Chandrayaan 3 launch:Launch of Chandrayaan 3 Live streaming of Chandrayaan 3's premiere: How to view the launch in real time on the internet

The uneven surface of the Moon, which is covered in craters and debris, makes this more challenging. Both landings might be disastrous for the expedition.