Chandrayaan-3, India’s Lunar Mission, aimed to explore which part of the Moon?

Concept

Chandrayaan-3 was India's third lunar exploration mission, launched by ISRO in 2023. Its core objective was a soft landing followed by in-situ study of the lunar surface, and the mission deliberately targeted the Moon's polar terrain because permanently shadowed craters there are believed to hold deposits of water ice and preserve clues about the Moon's early history.

Application

Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander touched down on 23 August 2023 near the high southern latitudes of the Moon, in the region around the South Pole (close to 69 degrees south). This made India the first country to land in the lunar South Pole region and the fourth country overall to achieve a soft landing on the Moon. The Pragyan rover then carried out experiments on the regolith there.

Why the South Pole

• The South Pole region has deep craters whose floors never receive sunlight, making them cold traps where water ice can survive.

• Water ice is a high-value resource for future missions (drinking water, oxygen, and rocket fuel), so this terrain is of major scientific and strategic interest.

• Earlier missions mostly explored equatorial and mid-latitude zones, leaving the polar region comparatively unstudied before Chandrayaan-3.