Chandrayaan-3 mission to launch next Friday. What you must know about historic Isro mission
The Chandrayaan programme, also known as the Indian lunar exploration programme, is an ongoing series of outer space missions by ISRO.
India's moon rocket Chandrayaan 3 will be launched on July 14 at 2:35 pm, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on Thursday.
ISRO tweeted, “Announcing the launch of Chandrayaan-3: 🚀LVM3-M4/Chandrayaan-3 🛰️Mission: The launch is now scheduled for 📆July 14, 2023, at 2:35 pm IST from SDSC, Sriharikota. Stay tuned for the updates!”
Officials at ISRO and the department of space on Wednesday told The Hindustan Times that the rocket assembly has been completed, the spacecraft has been fully integrated, and payload faring has been achieved successfully.
ISRO also tweeted on Thursday, “🚀LVM3-M4/Chandrayaan-3🛰️ Mission: The LVM3 M4 vehicle is moved to the launch pad. The final stage of preparation for the launch commences.”
Here is all you must know about the historic ISRO mission:
The Chandrayaan programme, also known as the Indian lunar exploration programme, is an ongoing series of outer space missions by ISRO. The first moon rocket, Chandrayaan-1, was launched in 2008, and was successfully inserted into lunar orbit.
Chandrayaan-1
Chandrayaan-1 was India's first moon mission and was successfully launched on October 22, 2008. For almost two-year-long mission, the spacecraft was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota.
As per ISRO, “The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon.”
Chandrayaan-1 carried 11 scientific instruments which were built in India, the USA, the UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.
After it had completed its mission objectives, the orbit had been increased from 100 to 200 kms in May, 2009.
The satellite made over 3400 orbits around the Moon and the mission was concluded after ISRO lost communication with the spacecraft on August 29, 2009.
Chandrayaan-2
Chandrayaan-2 was a “highly complex mission” which set on a journey to explore the previously unexplored south pole of the moon in 2019. Launched on July 22, 2019, the mission was aimed to expand the scientific knowledge on the moon by studying “topography, seismography, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition, thermo-physical characteristics of topsoil and composition of the tenuous lunar atmosphere”.
Chandrayaan-2 — which comprised of Orbiter, Lander and Rover — was set to understand the origin and evolution of the moon, according to ISRO.
After its Trans Lunar Insertion (TLI) manoeuvre on August 14, 2019, escaping Earth's orbit, Chandrayaan-2 moved towards the Moon. On August 20, 2019, it entered the lunar orbit.
As per ISRO, “While orbiting the moon in a 100 km lunar polar orbit, on September 02, 2019, Vikram Lander was separated from the Orbiter in preparation for landing. Subsequently, two de-orbit maneuvers were performed on Vikram Lander so as to change its orbit and begin circling the moon in a 100 km x 35 km orbit. Vikram Lander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed upto an altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently communication from lander to the ground stations was lost.”
The lander of Chandrayaan-2 made a “hard landing” on moon’s surface when it deviated from its trajectory while attempting to land on September 6, 2019, due to a software glitch.
Chandrayaan-3 aims to do Chandrayaan-2 could not.
Chandrayaan-3
Chandrayaan-3 is a mission following Chandrayaan-2. The mission is set to “demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface”.
Carrying a Lander module, propulsion module and Rover, the mission will be launched by LVM3 next Friday, July 14.
The propulsion module will be carrying the Lander and the Rover until 100 km of the lunar orbit. As per ISRO, “The propulsion module has Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and Polari metric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit.”
Its objectives include developing and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions. The lander will have the capability to “soft land” at a specified lunar site and deploy the rover, which will carry out in situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility.
As per ISRO, “The Lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the Rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. The Lander and the Rover have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface.”