India became the first nation to land a craft near the largely unexplored lunar south pole on Thursday . The successful touchdown of the Chandrayaan Mooncraft mission came just days after a Russian lander crashed in the same region . The sixwheeled solarpowered rover will amble around the relatively unmapped region and transmit images and scientific data over its twoweek lifespan .
India has a comparatively lowbudget space programme but one that has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the Moon in . India became first Asian nation to put a craft into orbit around Mars and plans to send a probe towards the sun in September .
ISRO is slated to launch a crewed mission into Earths orbit by next year . It also plans a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the Moon by and an orbital mission to Venus within the next two years . India plans to launch another mission to the moon within the two years of its orbital missions to the surface of the red planet within two years and is expected to launch an orbital probe to Mars in September 2015 .
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that the successful lunar landing was a triumph for all of humanity . Elon Musk whose firm SpaceX is a leader in commercial space launches hailed the landing as ‘super cool’ and said the landing was “super cool.
” The landing was an ‘autobiobiobiography’ of the landing’s ‘incredible” and ‘a very exciting” mission to India’ was a ‘trendy’ to the lunar lander’.
