The process of sanding mission to the moon began in 1950. Since then, the complexity of these missions has also increased. The scientific world has the craze to explore the universe and find a way to survive life on other planets after Earth. The things that are essential for living beings are water and air, and that is what different countries and their scientists are trying to find on other planets.

Before discussing the achievements of humans in the field of science and IT, let's discuss the five or six types of moon missions that are coming into use now.

1. Fly-by mission:

The simplest type of mission is a fly-by mission, where a spacecraft passes by the moon and doesn't orbit around the moon. Such a mission aims to gather all possible information from that particular surface of the moon from where a spacecraft passes through. The spacecraft clicks some pictures of the moon's surface. The first successful fly-by mission was launched by the Soviet Union in January 1959. Their spacecraft "Luna-1 passes by the moon successfully. Two months later, America launched its first successful fly-by mission, it was March 1959. The name of this mission was Pioneer-4. Later in the year, in October 1959 launched their second fly-by mission, Luna-3 which gave the first close photo of the moon.

2. Orbiter Mission: 

This mission is also called Lunar orbit, and such mission aims to study the nature of the moon's surface and the atmosphere. In this type of moon mission, a spacecraft orbits around the moon and gathers information. To date there are more than 40 successful mission has been concluded. The Luna-10 of the Soviet Union was an orbiter mission. Which was launched in 1960.

3. Impact mission: 

In this type of mission, a spacecraft lands/is crushed on the surface of the moon and makes an impact with it, that's why this mission is called an impact mission. India's Chandaryaan-1 was an impact mission that was launched on 22 October 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The particular point where Chandaryaan-1 makes an impact is called the " Moon impact probe" The main instrument used in Chandaryaan-1 was Chandra's Altitudinal Competition Explorer(ChACE). The location of the Chandaryaan-1 impact mission was Schakleton Creator. And that was named Jawhar Point by Indian Scientists. It was Chandaryaan-2 which gives strong evidence of water on the surface of the moon. This was a big achievement for the scientific world, because it opened the way for many countries to explore the moon. and it created headlines all over the world.

4. Lander Mission:

In this type of mission, a spacecraft softly lands on the surface of the moon. America, despite being a powerful nation in the world, has failed in the first 15 attempts to send a mission to the moon. The first successful attempt at a lander mission was made by the Soviet Union in 1996 in their luna-9 mission. This was the world's first land on the moon's surface by a spacecraft. Because these spacecraft are very bulky, it's very complicated to land them with accuracy.

5. Rover mission:

In such a mission, there's a small robots sent to the moon that gather various information about the moon's surface. Once again it was the Soviet Union to sent the first successful rover mission to the moon in November 1970.

6. Human Mission:

In this mission, an astronaut stepped on the surface of the moon. Nail Armstrong of America in 1969 was the first man in history to step on the moon. The last human moon mission was sent by America in 1972. Till now 12 people have successfully reached the moon and all of them are from NASA.

Scientists and developed nations are looking forward to sending more missions to the moon because humans are trying to find a suitable planet to live on. Elon Musk and other organizations and institutions are claiming that in the future, there will be possible resources for life's survival on Mars. So the scientific community is trying to use the moon as a mid-station of the journey to Mars. That's why countries like America, China, Russia, and Israel are working hard to explore the moon.

On 6 September 2019, India sent Chandaryaan-2 to the moon which unfortunately didn't succeed. Chandaryaan-2 was a rover mission, had that particular mission gone as per plan, the Vikram Lander of Chandaryaan-2 was set for a soft landing on the moon, which was named as "pragyan rover". Unfortunately, that didn't happen, there were a few reasons for the failure of This Mission, one of them being an engine that was not working as per plan and making that rover comfortable. ISRO Chief S. Somnath admitted that on 1st January 2020. The other reason was that the land patch chosen for the landing of Chandaryaan-2 wasn't enough large as its size was 500m×500m. The third of a few reasons was the high velocity of the spacecraft. Scientists believe that as the spacecraft approaches the moon's surface, the velocity should be slowed down continuously and when it makes an impact on the surface, the velocity should be zero. Whatever happened, the Chandaryaan-2 is called a half-successful mission, because the orbiter of chanderyan-2 is still working and it successfully connects with Chanderyan-3. After the failure of Chanderyan-2 Indian scientific community as well as the public was highly disappointed, and the other countries were making fun of ISRO. But our Scientists, physicists, astronauts, and the government didn't lose hope, they continued working on their mission, and finally on 14 July 2023 India successfully launched Chandaryaan-3 to the moon and became the fifth country overall to land a spacecraft on the moon and become the only country to land it on the South Pole of the moon. The landing patch for chandlery-3 is 40 times bigger than that of Chandaryaan-2 and is about 4km ×2.4km. Now the landing site is 70 degrees South. There's enough fuel in Chandaryaan-3, which will help the Vikram Lander to choose the perfect spot to land on. The Rover of chandaryaan-3 will leave a print of the Indian state emblem and also the mark of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Since there's no atmosphere on the moon these marks will remain there for a long long time.

There are three modules used in chandaryaan-3;

Lander rover module, and propulsion module.

The propulsion module aims to take the spacecraft (Chandaryaan-3) out of the Earth's orbit and send it toward the moon. The instrument used to search small exponents in space is called the Spectro-polarimetry of habitable planet Earth ( SHaPE). The instruments used in the Pragyan rover are ;

Laser to induced breakdown spectroscope (LIBS). It will analyze the composition of the moon's soil And the minerals found there. The other one is;

Alpha particle X-ray spectrum (APXS). The Vikram Lander has four instruments;

• Radio-anatomy of moon-bound hypersensitive ionosphere and atmosphere (RAMBA).
• Chandra's surface thermo physical experiment (ChaSTE). It will analyze the temperature at the South Pole of the moon.
• Instrument for lunar seismic activity (ILSA) This instrument will measure the seismic activities on the moon.
• Laser retroreflector array (LRA) This is the instrument is NASA, which will make contact with the scientists on Earth. There are a total of seven instruments used in Chandaryaan-3, these instruments are called Payloads. 

The Weight of Vikram Lander is 1750kg and the weight of the rover is about 26kg. rover aims to gather information from the South Pole of the moon and it will work during that time because at night the temperature on the moon will be very low about -232c. The rover has 14 days(one lunar day is equal to 14 days of Earth) to collect the information. Before India the other countries which have their flags on the moon are; China (in 2009) Israel (in 2019) Luxembourg (in March 2022) and the United Arab Emirates (in December 2022). India is now the only country to land a spacecraft in the South Pole of the moon. Which is a great achievement of mankind. India's victory is celebrated in different parts of the world. and ISRO left a mark in the scientific world. Which will be remembered for ages.

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Note: The writer is doing a master's in physics from Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University (BGSBU) Rajouri.