Police are investigating an Indian actor for joking about the country’s Moon lander

Enlarge / An LVM-3 rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on Friday. (credit: R.Satish BABU / AFP)

Three years ago, India sought to land a small spacecraft on the Moon, Chandrayaan 2. However, due to a series of problems, including software errors, the lander crashed into the gray and lonely lunar surface during its final descent. This failure hit a sore spot for the country, which takes pride in its burgeoning space program and its growing list of achievements.

Now, there is a lot of national fervor behind India’s second attempt to land on the Moon, with a spacecraft called Chandrayaan 3. After launching in mid-July, the spacecraft’s Vikram lander is due to attempt a soft touchdown at 8:34 am ET (12:34 UTC) on Wednesday. Success is far from guaranteed, especially after Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon this past weekend.

It was, therefore, perhaps inadvisable that a well-known Indian actor and politician named Prakash Raj took to the social media network formerly known as Twitter this weekend to share an image and comment, “BREAKING NEWS:- First picture coming from the Moon by #VikramLander Wowww #justasking”