Soma Roy Acharjee

Whenever we face challenges in life, we say this is no rocket Science and we can do it!However, India drew a new line to this statement’ ‘Even Rocket Science is doable’ with the ISRO culture, which thrives in organised , dedicated, cumulative efforts supplemented with a thorough and open review mechanism.

“No member of the team , including its leader, is greater than the team” -this belief of ISRO has led to the openness of paying a heed to everyone’s understanding of the problems in the mission.

The unforgiving high vacuum environment of space with ionising radiation and many unknown dangers lurking in the dark, demands rigorous hypothesis, meticulous planning, designing, testing, analysing, reviewing and re-reviewing. This is where the knowledge of the failure story of unsuccessful landing of Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019 comes into effect, again proving that “Failure is the stepping stones to success.”

Salute to the  multi-disciplinary team of domain experts with 1000+ engineers and scientists with a special mention to over 100 women of India, adorning the saree who has led to the path of making the moon a “tour away” place, instead of a “far away” place.

 In India since mythological age we consider Earth to be the mother and  have bonded to the moon as the “Mama”(maternal uncle) protecting the Earth by orbiting it. So with the success of Chandrayaan-3, the mission is like visiting a maternal uncle.

The ‘Lord of the moon’ as his name signifies S.Somnath, Chairman ISRO said the four critical  steps to the Chandrayaan-3 mission were Launch of the rocket from the Earth, Landing of the orbiter in the  precise orbit, Separation of the launcher and the orbiter, Soft landing of the Lander Vikram on the moon surface.

The ambitious journey to be the first country to reach the South pole of the moon, with the objective of achieving a soft landing has been well achieved by the lander, Vikram. Now with Pragyan, the rover on the lunar surface, it is set to explore the surface and collect invaluable scientific data. The less illuminated region of the lunar surface is expected to be a mine of offerings in terms of presence of water, minerals and elemental compositions.

The communication channel set from ‘Mama Bari(moon)’ to ‘Bari(Earth)’ is also beautifully garlended where Pragyan, the rover radio communicates with Vikram, the lander who further communicates with the two orbiters Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and the propulsion module orbiter present in the moon’s orbit. This is further communicated to the Bengaluru mission control room. All data and photographs are thus obtained from the lunar surface to Earth surface.

We Indians are immensely proud as we step into the golden era of scientific exploration mission to achieve such a feat with minimum no. of missions and minimum cost as compared to the other four members of the Space club.

The made in India craft has paved the path for generations to come to dream of a home away from home.

(The author is the Director of New Edge Programme of Techno India Group)