Chandrayaan, Aditya-L1, Gaganyaan: The year India reached the Moon - and aimed for the Sun - BBC News

With Chandrayaan-3, Aditya-L1 and Gaganyaan, India's space agency Isro has had a spectacular year.

28 December 2023Shareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsChandrayaan programmeImage source, IsroImage caption, Vikram lander, with Pragyaan rover in its belly, landed on the far side of the Moon in AugustBy Geeta PandeyBBC News, DelhiIn India, 2023 will be remembered as the year we went to the Moon.

On 23 August, massive celebrations broke out across the country when Chandrayaan-3 touched down in the lunar south pole region - an area on the Moon's surface that no-one had reached before.

With this, India also joined an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.

In the following months, India continued its journey into space - by sending an observation mission to the Sun and then by carrying out a key test flight ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space in 2025.

We look back at an eventful year when India's strides into space made global headlines.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-67769454?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

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