Mission success · landed 23 August 2023

Chandrayaan-3

On 23 August 2023, India became the first nation to land near the lunar south pole — and the fourth to soft-land on the Moon.

Chandrayaan-3 is the third mission of the Chandrayaan programme. After Chandrayaan-2's lander was lost in 2019 to a software glitch, ISRO built a focused re-attempt: a lander (Vikram), a rover (Pragyan) and a propulsion module — no orbiter, since the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter was already operating and could serve as a communications relay.

LVM3-M4 lifting off with Chandrayaan-3 — LVM3-M4 lifts off with Chandrayaan-3 from Sriharikota, 14 July 2023. Image: ISRO, via Wikimedia Commons

Mission timeline

Date	Event
14 July 2023	Launch at 09:05 UTC aboard LVM3-M4 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre
5 August 2023	Lunar orbit insertion
17 August 2023	Lander module separates from the propulsion module
23 August 2023	Vikram soft-lands at 18:03 IST (12:33 UTC) at 69.37°S, 32.35°E — the site is named Shiv Shakti Point (Statio Shiv Shakti)
23–24 August 2023	Pragyan rover rolls down the ramp and begins surface operations
3 September 2023	Vikram performs a surprise "hop" experiment — lifting ~40 cm and landing 30–40 cm away, a first step towards future sample-return
4 September 2023	Lander and rover put to sleep before lunar night; they did not reawaken, having already completed all mission objectives
November–December 2023	The propulsion module is flown back from lunar orbit to Earth orbit — another sample-return rehearsal

Chandrayaan-3 landing site imaged by NASA's LRO — Shiv Shakti Point imaged by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image: NASA/GSFC/ASU, via Wikimedia Commons

Scientific results

Sulfur confirmed: Pragyan's LIBS instrument made the first in-situ measurements near the south pole, unambiguously confirming sulfur, along with aluminium, calcium, iron, chromium and titanium.
First south-polar temperature profile: ChaSTE measured ~50–80 °C at the surface plunging to about −170 °C just 10 cm below — a far steeper gradient than models predicted.
Moonquake recorded: ILSA registered what appears to be a natural seismic event, the first recorded on the Moon since the Apollo era.
Plasma measurements: RAMBHA-LP made the first measurements of the near-surface lunar plasma environment in the south polar region.
Landing-site geology: continued analysis of APXS data (published through 2025–26) has linked Shiv Shakti Point's composition to lunar meteorites and revealed the compositional diversity of the southern highlands. In July 2026, ISRO highlighted a PRL study showing the site's composition closely matches ALHA 81005 — the Antarctic find that in 1982 became the first meteorite recognised as coming from the Moon.
A layered topsoil: analysis of data from the 3 September 2023 "hop", published in 2026, revealed that the soil at Shiv Shakti Point has two distinct layers within just the top few centimetres.

Legacy: 23 August is now celebrated as India's National Space Day. The landing made India the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon (after the USSR, USA and China) and the first to do so in the south polar region. Total mission cost was about ₹615 crore — see Funding. In May 2026 the mission received the AIAA's Goddard Astronautics Award, one of spaceflight's highest honours.

What's next

Chandrayaan-4, approved in September 2024, will attempt to return up to 3 kg of samples around 2028. Early plans pointed near Shiv Shakti Point, but in February 2026 ISRO identified a landing site on the flat summit of Mons Mouton — even closer to the south pole — chosen using Chandrayaan-2's high-resolution OHRC imagery. Chandrayaan-5 / LUPEX, approved in March 2025 with JAXA, will send a large rover to hunt for water ice at the south pole. See the upcoming missions section. Meanwhile, Gaganyaan — India's human spaceflight programme is training the astronauts who may one day walk where Vikram landed.

Source: Wikipedia — Chandrayaan-3; ISRO