YouTube chief Neal Mohan has extended his wishes to Isro for achieving the streaming milestone with India’s historic launch on the Moon. Posted on his X’s timeline, Neal Mohan said, “This was so exciting to watch — congratulations to the whole team at @Isro.8M concurrent viewers is incredible!” With the historic soft-landing on the lunar south pole, India has become the first country to venture into the virgin territory of the Moon. India has also become the fourth country after the US, China, and Russia to attain the capability of soft-landing on the Moon.
The live-streaming featured a 16-second clip showcasing various moments from Isro’s mission control centre in Bengaluru, capturing the entire journey from the start of the broadcast to Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing as well as showing the excitement and celebrations among Isro staff.
It was YouTube India’s X page which posted a video with a caption on September 12 that “things that made us go woah: India landed on the moon! @isro’s livestream on YouTube records a whopping 8 million concurrent viewers- we’re over the moon!”
After the soft-landing on August 23, the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover have completed all their scientific tasks on the lunar surface during the one lunar day (14 Earth days) and are currently in hibernation mode and facing freezing temperatures of minus 230-250 degrees C during the lunar night (14 Earth days).
Isro chairman S Somanath has said that there is a possibility that Vikram and Pragyan will come to life again once the sunlight falls on their solar panels after the end of the lunar night, which is around September 22.
If the lander and rover are able to withstand the extreme freezing temperatures at the south pole, Isro’s Chandrayaan-3 mission duration will stretch and Vikram-Pragyan will be able to explore more mysteries of the south pole on the Moon.
ISRO’s unsung heroes who ‘breathed Chandrayaan-3 for four years’
Chandrayaan-3 rover has till now confirmed the presence of sulphur near the south pole through first-ever in-situ measurements, Isro said. The agency has also informed that the scientific instrument had also detected aluminium, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium, manganese, silicon and oxygen.