In a historic achievement, India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft became the fourth entity to join the elite lunar-landing club, setting a remarkable precedent by softly descending onto the lunar surface near the south pole. This feat, celebrated worldwide, underscores the ascending significance of developing nations in the space realm. Chinese experts extolled this accomplishment, emphasizing the imperative for India to shun geopolitical agendas and embrace scientific collaboration, as the spirit of science is inherently transcendent of national boundaries.
The successful landing aims to benefit moon missions globally and holds tremendous promise for future endeavors. The compact solar-powered rover named Pragyan, slated to disembark from the lander, will embark on a fortnight-long lunar exploration mission, amassing vital data about the moon’s composition.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, currently participating in the BRICS Summit in South Africa, declared that this triumph “belongs to all of humanity” and will catalyze forthcoming moon missions.
Chinese experts applauded this achievement, recognizing the shared status of China and India as emerging economies and fellow members of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They underscored the extensive potential for bilateral cooperation encompassing deep-space exploration and manned missions, encompassing the exchange of data, experiences, and astronaut training.
Hu Shisheng, director of the Institute for South Asian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, emphasized that scientific pursuits unite humanity, transcending geopolitical barriers for the collective betterment.
The lunar landing endeavor is fraught with challenges, exemplified by Russia’s recent Luna-25 probe failure and India’s initial lunar touchdown setback in 2019. The lunar south pole remains a tantalizing scientific frontier, potentially housing vast water ice deposits that could revolutionize future space exploration.
China, eyeing the moon’s southern region, is fervently progressing its lunar exploration through the Chang’e-7 mission, poised to conduct comprehensive surveys by 2026. Moreover, the collaborative International Lunar Research Station, an endeavor co-founded by China and Russia, is slated for completion around 2028 with the Chang’e-8 launch.
Comparatively assessing Chinese and Indian technological prowess, Pang Zhihao, a distinguished Beijing-based senior space expert, accentuated China’s technological ascendancy. China’s adeptness in orchestrating orbiter and lander trajectories to the Earth-Moon transfer orbit, a capability India still lacks, underscores China’s technological sophistication. Furthermore, China’s lunar rover, boasting a weight of 140 kilograms compared to India’s 26 kilograms, and enhanced endurance due to nuclear power, solidify its technical supremacy.
Nonetheless, geopolitical considerations have occasionally hindered global cooperation in China’s space program. An Indian project manager lamented that a key equipment for China Space Station collaboration awaits export clearance from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, illustrating the interplay of geopolitics in scientific collaboration.
