In late 2025 observatories tagged a mystery near-Earth object as CE1M9G2 and assumed it was an asteroid. It turned out to be a piece of Chandrayaan-3, the ISRO mission that had flown its propulsion module from lunar orbit back to Earth. This episode starts with the 2019 Chandrayaan-2 crash, caused by a fixed-thrust central engine that could not correct the lander's attitude during the camera coasting phase, and explains the fixes: four variable-thrust corner engines, attitude correction rates raised from 10 to 25 degrees per second, a laser Doppler velocimeter for a real-time 3D picture of the ground, and reinforced landing legs.

The hosts then walk through the August 23, 2023 landing near the lunar south pole, the Pragyan rover's 14-day window before the minus 184 degree Celsius lunar night, and the decision to skip radioisotope heaters to ...