Russia's Luna-25 crash will not impact Chandrayaan-3 mission: Indian scientists
The crashing of Russia's Lunar spacecraft into the moon will have no impact on India's Chandrayaan-3 venture, say two of India's top space scientists
Top Indian space scientists have dismissed any impact from Russia's Luna-25 failed moon mission on ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 lunar venture.
Russia's first lunar mission in 47 years failed when its Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit. Russia's Roscosmos space agency made this announcement of the failure of its lunar mission on August 20
Russia had been racing against India, whose Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is scheduled to land on the moon's south pole on August 23, and more significantly against China and the United States, who harbour big lunar ambitions.
When asked if ISRO will be under additional pressure ahead of the soft landing on the moon after the Russian debacle, K Sivan, who was heading ISRO when the Chandrayaan-2 mission was launched in 2019, told PTI on Monday (August 21): "It does not have any impact." While Madhavan Nair, former ISRO chairman too echoed the same view saying that India's venture is totally self-sufficient and "we are not dependent on them (Russia)".
Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module with a rover in its belly is expected to touch down on the surface of the moon around 6.04 pm on Wednesday, ISRO had said on Sunday.
"It (Chandrayaan-3 mission) is going on as per plan. It (soft landing) will be done accordingly," Sivan said, adding that they are hoping that this time (unlike Chandrayaan-2) it (the touchdown) will be successful.
Madhavan Nair dismissed talk in some quarters that India and Russia were engaged in a race to the moon, and termed the crash-landing of Luna-25 as unfortunate. "I know the (lander) module. It was ready way back in 2008. When I visited the lab (in Russia), they showed me the module. They didn't have the resources to fly (then), so it had been kept in cold storage for a long time. Now only they had resources (to launch)," he told PTI.
Nair ruled out any impact on the Chandrayaan-3 mission launched on July 14. Right now, India's space cooperation with Russia is limited to training of Indian astronauts for the Gaganyaan human space flight mission.
"So, had it (Luna-25) landed, our data and their (Russian) data (collected based on experiments on the lunar surface) would have been complementary," he said.
(With agency inputs)