A triumph for India which becomes the fourth nation to ever be on the moon, the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 probe is a PR disaster for Russian President Vladimir Putin after Russia’s own moon probe, the Luna 24, crashed at the weekend

India staked a new claim as a superpower in space, landing its Chandrayaan-3 space probe safely on the moon’s unexplored south pole on August 23 to celebrations across the country.

Crowds had gathered in front of giant screens set in public places to breathlessly watch the progress of the spacecraft as it descended towards the surface of the moon. Prayers were held at places of worship across the country, and schoolchildren waved the Indian tricolour as they watched the countdown to the landing on live screenings from the moon.

Shouts of “victory India” went up across the country after the probe successfully made a soft landing near the moon’s south pole in a historic event that ushers India into the elite club of space exploring nations.

Tensions were twice as high after Russia’s probe, the Luna-25 failed to complete exactly the same mission to land in exactly the same place but crashed when its rockets malfunctioned and burned for about 30 seconds more than intended, putting it on a collision course with the surface that could not be rectified in time.

“It’s gone crazy here! The newsroom is mayhem. All the lines are busy. Everyone is celebrating,” an Indian journalist colleague told bne IntelliNews after the news broke amidst reports of widespread celebrations across the sub-continent.

The Indians' pride will be the Kremlin’s shame. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tuned in to the livestream of the landing from South Africa’s Johannesburg, where he is attending the 15th BRICS summit of emerging markets.

Indian scientists and officials in mission control clapped, cheered and hugged each other as the spacecraft landed and as the government now looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses. Chandrayaan means "moon vehicle" in Hindi and Sanskrit.

“All the people of the world, the people of every country and region: India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone ... this success belongs to all of humanity!” Modi said. “We can all aspire for the moon, and beyond,” Modi added.

The moon mission has received blanket coverage and will be a source of national pride for years to come, bolstering Modi’s brand.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin was hoping for a similar bump in his authority. Russia returned to space after an almost 50 years hiatus with the Luna-25 mission, conducted in the midst of a war with Ukraine, and was also hyped by the Russian media.

The Kremlin was hoping to remind the population of the former Soviet glory days when Russia was the first to launch the Sputnik satellite and Yuri Gagarin made history as the first man in space in 1961.

But the mission ended in disaster when a communications glitch meant mission control in the new Vostochny spaceport was unable to turn the engines off during a burn to put the spacecraft into a landing orbit.

While the engine control failure was the technical reason for the crash, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, sheepishly admitted that the real reason was, “the interruption of the lunar program for almost 50 years”.

“We have to essentially master all the technologies in a new way,” Borisov complained.

Roscosmos has assembled an emergency commission that is investigating the causes of the crash. And the negative experience, according to the head of the state corporation, will be taken into account in the implementation of the following missions.

So far, all versions explaining the abnormal operation of the engine come down to two groups: equipment failure near the Moon and errors on the Earth - programming, control or mission preparation.

The Luna-25 crash may be connected to the Western sanctions to Russia, but as bne IntelliNews reported, those technology sanctions have largely failed. However, given the sophistication of the technology needed to put a probe into space it may be that Russia was forced to invent or improvise with its own space technology to an extent that contributed to the crash.

Much hilarity was had at Russia’s expense after the news of the Luna-25 disaster broke, with a myriad of washing machine jokes; Russia has been caught importing large numbers of western washing machines via its partners in Central Asia which have been stripped of their microchips that were then used to make the missiles Russia has been firing at Ukraine since technology sanctions were introduced.

The optics of India’s triumph are also very bad. Modi is currently in Johannesburg attending the BRICS summit where India is being de facto acknowledged as one of the leaders of the new Emerging Market power as a member of the BRICS.

He is surrounded by other Emerging Market leaders and on the same day busy with historical discussions on how the club can be expanded to create a group that will represent the interests of the Emerging Markets on the global stage and challenge the G7 of rich nations in geopolitics.

By contrast, Putin was forced to stay at home, unable to travel after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest in March, who is charged with kidnapping children from Ukraine. Although Putin is participating by video link, his enforced absence only highlights Russia’s pariah status on a day when the other BRICS leaders will be able to congratulate Modi personally on India’s historic achievement.

India can now proceed with the mission of exploring the south polar regions of the moon that are mostly in shadow. It is hoped the cooler temperature and lack of sunlight means there are significant deposits of water on the dark side of the moon, enough to sustain a moonbase and also provide the materials to make fuel. No one has explored the south pole regions, while the northern part of the moon has been extensively studied.

This is India’s third attempt to land on the moon. Previously it tried a lunar south pole landing in September 2019, but a software failure caused the Chandrayaan-2 mission to crash into the surface. The first attempt went wrong early on and the probe never left Earth’s orbit.

Earlier this year, Japan also made its first ever attempt to land on the moon, but also crashed.