Until Wednesday, only three countries had managed to land on the surface of the Moon, located about 384,000 kilometers from Earth: Russia, the United States and China.
This milestone puts India one step ahead of a new moon race. The moon landing comes a few days after a Russian probe crashed in the same region.
These are some of the other competitors in the new space race, reminiscent of the one between the United States and the USSR in the 1960s.
China
The Asian giant plans to send astronauts to the Moon before 2030 and its main objective is to build a base there. China sent its first human into space in 2003, long after the Soviets and Americans did in 1961, at the height of the Cold War.
The Chinese space program has been gaining momentum through multi-million dollar investments. In 2019 he achieved a historic feat: landing a ship on the far side of the Moon.
Then, in 2020, he managed to bring back a spacecraft with lunar samples, an operation that had not been accomplished in more than 40 years. In 2021 he managed to land a small robot on Mars.
USA
NASA’s historic lunar missions were called Apollo.
Half a century later, the US space agency is now concentrating its efforts on the Artemis program, which officially aims to return astronauts by 2025, including the first black man and woman on lunar soil.
The goal is to build a base on the surface of the Moon and a space station in its orbit.