By Prior Beharry

INDIA lands a spacecraft on the Moon.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “India is now on the Moon.”

On Wednesday, Chandrayaan-3 became the first space mission to land near the south pole of the Moon.

Inside this Vikram lander was a six-wheeled Pragyann rover which is expected to roam the lunar surface and send back images and data.

Scientists believe that craters are permanently frozen with water on the dark side of the Moon.

This was India’s third attempt at a lunar mission with Russia’s unmanned Luna-25 spacecraft failing in its mission and crashing on the Moon on Sunday.

India’s mission cost about US$75 million compared to Russia’s US$200 million.

The Vikram lander will literally wait a few hours for the dust to settle and then the panels at its side will open to deploy a ramp that will allow a rover, the Pragyann, to reach the surface.

Pragyann will scan the surface travelling at one centimetre per second and will communicate with the lander that will send information to the orbiter Chandrayaan-2 that will be circling the Moon sending data back to Earth.

The rover will be charged by solar panels as a day on the Moon equates to 28 days on Earth. This means that the rover will have 14 days to charge its batteries.