VSSC documentary recounts the story of India’s moon missions

Brought out in connection with the upcoming first anniversary of the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing, the 12-minute documentary captures the appeal of the earth’s only natural satellite and India’s own efforts to study it up close

For centuries, the moon has fascinated people across cultures, inspiring them to dream of worlds other than the earth. In connection with the upcoming first anniversary of the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing, the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) here has brought out a short documentary which captures the appeal of earth’s only natural satellite and India’s own efforts to study it up close.

Moon - A Timeless Fascination was produced by the Visual Documentation and Outreach Division at the VSSC for the National Space Day celebrations on August 23, which marks the first anniversary of the soft-landing near the lunar south pole. The documentary is being screened in Kerala, Lakshadweep, and Mahe for schoolchildren at programmes organised by ISRO ahead of the anniversary.

The 12-minute production opens with a quote by Vikram Sarabhai, who is celebrated as the father of the Indian space programme: “We must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.”

From ISRO archives

Cut to the countdown at the Mission Control Centre, Sriharikota, on July 14, 2023, for the giant LVM-3 rocket tasked with launching the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into orbit. The next footage shows the Mission Operations Complex, ISTRAC, Bengaluru, on August 23, 2023, and the euphoria following the Vikram lander soft-landing on the moon.

The short documentary has footage from the ISRO archives, in addition to those from earlier missions such as NASA’s Apollo programme which succeeded in sending humans to the moon. The documentary also traces ISRO’s growth from a nondescript beach in Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram, in the 1960s.

Lessons from failure

Moon - A Timeless Fascination traces the Chandrayaan moon missions which kicked off with Chandrayaan-1 mission that was launched in October 2008. The follow-up mission, Chandrayaan-2, was launched in July 2019. Although the mission failed in soft-landing on the moon, it enabled ISRO to develop technologies for the Chandrayaan-3 mission in a very short time, the documentary notes.

The documentary also lists India’s future plans for the moon such as having an Indian on the moon by 2040, and — in the longer run — a sustained lunar habitat which would serve as an “intermediate pitstop” for explorations of other planets in the solar system.