New Delhi, Aug 17 (EFE).- India\u2019s space mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-3, entered its last stage on Thursday before its moon landing at the south pole, scheduled for Aug. 23, with the separation of the lander from the propulsion module.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Thanks for the ride, mate!\u201d Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) posted on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, to announce the successful separation of the Propulsion Module (PM) from the Landing Module (LM) that will now begin its approach to the Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLM is set to descend to a slightly lower orbit upon a deboosting planned for tomorrow around 1600 Hrs., IST,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The separation of the two modules came after the mission completed its final orbital maneuver to bring the spacecraft closer to the lunar surface yesterday, ISRO added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the successful completion of this mission, which kicked off on July 14, India would become the fourth country to manage to land a probe on the Moon, after the United States, Russia and China, and the first to reach its south pole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the latter milestone could possibly be under threat from Russia\u2019s Luna-25 mission, which took off from the Vostochny cosmodrome last week, and is expected to make a landing between Aug. 21-23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Chandrayaan-3 marks India’s third lunar exploration mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The south Asian nation launched its first space mission to the Moon in 2008, Chandrayaan-1, an orbiter that orbited the Earth\u2019s natural satellite more than 3,400 times without landing between November 2008 and August 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The probe discovered direct evidence of water on the Moon, and an analysis of measurements taken by the Chandrayaan-1 with a NASA measuring instrument confirmed in 2018 multiple ice reserves in the permanently shaded areas of the satellite, according to the US agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2019, ISRO attempted to land a probe at the south pole of the Moon with its second mission, Chandrayaan-2, but it crashed while landing due to technical problems. EFE <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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