Chandrayaan-3 success has positive global ramifications

India became just the fourth country to stage a soft landing on the moon, and the first at the South Pole when the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully alighted on the lunar South Pole.

The path of Chandrayaan-3, which was launched from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh in southern India more than a month ago, captivated the Indian public and dominated headlines in the nation for days.

The symbolism of India’s moon landing is hard to dimnish; an aspiring and fast developing nation, also the world’s most populous, has achieved an unprecedented feat nearly 240,000 miles away from Earth.

India’s space program originated in the 1960s and the country has launched hundreds of satellites.

In 2008, Chandrayaan-1 mission confirmed the presence of craters on the moon’s South Pole that scientists say contain ice. However, a previous attempt at a soft landing on the moon failed in 2019.

On the global stage, the landing represents a moment of arrival for India, with clear political gains for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who added another feather to his cap, and enhanced his global image.

India’s goals of becoming a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group may stand unfulfilled, but it is now part of a much smaller group of countries that have been to the moon, alongside only China, Russia, and the United States.

Many aspirants including Israel, Japan, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates have not succeeded in landing on the moon’s South Pole. Beyond the symbolism, the achievement can bring substantive benefits to India and the wider world.

New Delhi’s moon landing can enhance ongoing space research that has contributed to the development of communication and remotesensing technologies.

India’s space research has also helped monitor underground water levels and predict weather patterns back home on Earth, which is especially significant since India is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change.

The lunar landing could also boost India’s economy by kick-starting private space exploration programs.

India’s space sector could become a trillion-dollar economy, according to sector experts, drawing huge global investments, apart from corporate investments from Indian companies.

Indian space experts have also spoken of how the Chandrayaan-3 mission can accelerate efforts to fight climate change. The lunar mission involves research on helium-3, a helium isotope found in abundance on the moon that could serve as a renewable energy resource.

This assumes significance as India is rapidly transitioning to a renewable energy economy. The Chandrayaan-3 mission could introduce a new phase of great power competition by accelerating a long-running space race.

India and Russia, partners on Earth, competed to become the first to land on the lunar South Pole; a Russian attempt however, failed.

The presence of water, which could be refined into rocket fuel in the future, suggests an opportunity for other countries to use the lunar South Pole region as a base for deeper space exploration.

Perhaps in anticipation of such competition, in 2020 the United States established the Artemis Accords, which aim to promote space cooperation through shared rules and principles.

Many U.S. allies and partners have signed on, including India during Modi’s visit to Washington. China and Russia have not signed though, as perhaps expected.

With geopolitical competition in space poised to intensify, India’s successful moon landing could certainly change the way countries on Earth perceive the moon and beyond.