The shadow of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is seen on the moon’s surface.
ISRO
The list is grim reading: Stuck, failed, missed, failed, failed, stuck, failed, crashed, missed, crashed, crashed.
Those were the fate of the Soviet Union’s first 11 attempts before successfully landing a spacecraft on the moon, according to a database compiled by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who catalogs space missions.
Even in the modern era — with nine lunar landing attempts since 2013 — the track record is still shaky. Before India’s success Wednesday, missions by China, India, Israel, Japan and Russia were three for eight in the past decade.
McDowell’s database showcases the monumental challenge undertaken by the 50 attempts to land on the moon, with a cheeky scoreboard that reads: Earthlings 23, Gravity 27.
India chocked up its first W against Gravity on Wednesday, after the country’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft safely landed on the lunar…
2023-08-23 17:41:26
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