NASA Administrator congratulates India's Chandrayaan-3 success

Mumbai: NASA administrator Bill Nelson said on Friday that India has accomplished something unprecedented in the Chandrayaan-3 mission and that it deserves all the praise for that achievement.

"My congratulations to India. You have landed first around the south pole of the moon. We will have a commercial lander that will land next year, but India was the first. Others have tried, and others have failed. But India was successful. You deserve every bit of praise for this accomplishment. It's very significant," he said while speaking to reporters in Mumbai.

The NISAR mission was also brought up by Nelson, who said that with the accomplishment of the four main observatories, a comprehensive three-dimensional composite model would be established to determine Earth's conditions.

"This is a major observatory that we are putting up with the Indian government. There are four major observatories. Once we get all four up, along with the 25 spacecraft already in orbit, we will have a complete 3D composite model of what is exactly happening to the Earth. We want to preserve our home."

He added, "The first of these great observatories is NISAR. It will observe all the surfaces of the Earth. It will see any changes in the water, the land, and the ice. That will be another set of data that will help us understand what is happening to the Earth... That mission is coming in the first part of the next year. The rocket is provided by the Indian Space Agency, and then we have built the spacecraft together... It is being prepared in Bangalore at ISRO."

Researchers will be able to better understand how changes in Earth's forest and wetland ecosystems are impacting the global carbon cycle and driving climate change with the assistance of NISAR, a joint NASA-ISRO Earth-observing mission, ANI reported.

The advanced radar systems of NISAR, a joint NASA-ISRO mission, will scan almost the whole surface of Earth twice every twelve days while it is in orbit. The information it gathers will aid scientists in comprehending the capture and release of carbon, two essential processes in both kinds of ecosystems.

According to the NASA administrator, the agency is planning to send astronauts to the moon once more, but this time they will be joined by international partners and have a multinational crew on their maiden lunar trip.

"Well, there is a tremendous opportunity in the future for expanded commercial investment from India. Now at NASA, we have commercial partners, so, for example, we are going back to the moon, but this time we go back with our commercial partners. And we go with our international partners. In the first mission with the astronauts to the moon, which will be a year from now, it will have an international crew. So commercial efforts are a big part of our space program, and that will be the same here in India as well," he added.

Nelson paid a visit to the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in Bengaluru on Thursday. This is the location where the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite is being tested in preparation for its 2024 launch.

While in India, the NASA chief also spoke with students at Bengaluru's Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum (VITM) on Wednesday.