Fact Check: Chandrayaan 3 yet to land on moon; news reports about finding water untrue

Hyderabad: A day after Chandrayaan-3 entered the lunar orbit, ISRO released a video of the moon ‘as viewed by Chandrayaan-3. It was also released ahead of the second major maneuver.

Amid that, a local news channel `News TV’ published a report that claims Chandrayan 3 has allegedly landed on the moon successfully and has also discovered pure water on the surface of the moon.On August 5, the Chandrayaan-3 mission achieved a crucial milestone with the successful completion of the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI). The insertion was carried out by retro-burning at the Perilune for 1835 seconds, starting at 19:12 Hrs IST. The maneuver resulted in an orbit of 164 km x 18074 km, as intended. This is the third time in succession that ISRO has successfully put its spacecraft into the lunar orbit apart from doing so into the Martian orbit.

Not only this, but the report also shows bytes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ISRO's officials celebrating the victory.

Keep scrolling to get your facts right.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the viral video is a compilation of multiple old and unrelated videos. There is neither any such information about finding water by Chandrayaan 3 yet nor about it landing on the moon. The landing will be attempted by Chandrayan 3 on 23rd August 2023.

We started our investigation, by performing a keyword search to find similar reports on credible media websites but could not find any such information about the successful landing and discovery of water on the surface of the moon.

Whereas, through the search, we found a report in Hindustan Times titled ‘Chandrayaan-3 successfully lowers lunar orbit. What's ahead for Moon soft landing’. It clearly states the Chandrayaan 3 hasn’t landed yet.

The report also gave a timeline.

“‘On Aug 5, 2023, the Chandrayaan-3 mission achieved a crucial milestone with the successful completion of the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI). As the mission progresses, a series of maneuvers have been planned to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3's orbit and position it over the lunar poles. After some maneuvers, the propulsion module will separate from the lander while in orbit. Following that, a series of complex braking maneuvers will be executed to facilitate a soft landing in the South Polar region of the Moon on August 23, 2023.” ISRO said.

Lastly, a day after Chandrayaan-3 entered the lunar orbit, the ISRO on August 6 released a video of the Moon 'as viewed by Chandrayaan-3'. The real video can be seen on the Official website of ISRO.