ISRO’s Lunar Success (Chandrayaan-3) and Momentum for Mars Exploration
Chandrayaan-3, launched July 2023, achieved a soft landing near the Moon’s south pole on August 23, 2023, with lander Vikram and six-wheeled rover Pragyan. The mission conducted 14 days of surface operations and returned at least 1100 images and data, including ChaSTE soil temperature measurements to 10 cm depth. Chandrayaan-3 marked India’s first soft landing in the lunar south polar region and made India the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon. The mission cost was about $75 million. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM / Mangalyaan-1) launched on November 5, 2013 atop a PSLV-XL, with a dry mass of about