Candrayāna Abhiyāna | |
Program overview | |
---|---|
Country | India |
Organisation | ISRO |
Purpose | Exploration of the Moon |
Status | Active |
Programme history | |
Cost | ₹1,980 crore (US$240 million)[1][2] |
Duration | 2003–present[3] |
First flight | Chandrayaan-1, 22 October 2008 |
Last flight | Chandrayaan-3, 14 July 2023 |
Successes | 2 |
Failures | 0 |
Partial failures | 1 (Chandrayaan-2) |
Launch site(s) | Satish Dhawan Space Centre |
Vehicle information | |
Vehicle type |
|
Uncrewed vehicle(s) |
|
Launch vehicle(s) |
The Chandrayaan programme (/ˌtʃʌndrəˈjɑːn/ CHUN-drə-YAHN) (Sanskrit: Candra 'Moon', Yāna 'Craft, Vehicle', )[4][5] also known as the Indian Lunar Exploration Programme is an ongoing series of outer space missions by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for the exploration of the Moon. The program incorporates a lunar orbiter, an impactor, a soft lander and a rover spacecraft.
There have been three missions so far with a total of two orbiters, landers and rovers each. While the two orbiters were successful, the first lander and rover which were part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, crashed on the surface. The second lander and rover mission Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the Moon on 23 August 2023, making India the first nation to successfully land a spacecraft in the lunar south pole region, and the fourth country to soft land on the Moon after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
The name Chandrayaan means "Chandra-Moon, Yaan-Vehicle", – in Indian languages (Sanskrit and Hindi), – the lunar spacecraft