New Delhi: In an effort to make India join an elite club of countries that have completed a lunar mission with a soft landing, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is all set to launch its Chandrayaan-3 moon mission on Friday. The reason for fixing the launch window during the month of July – similar to the Chandrayaan-2 mission (July 22, 2019) – is because the Earth and the Moon will be closer to each other during this time of the year.
Chandrayaan-3 is the follow-up mission of the Indian space agency To demonstrate end-to-end capability of Chandrayaan-2 to safely land and orbit around the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-3 launch date: How to watch ISRO’s third moon mission launch online
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The launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled for Friday at 2:35 pm (IST) from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
ISRO will telecast the launch live on its official website and on its official YouTube channel.
Chandrayaan-3 Launch: All About ISRO’s Third Moon Mission
Chandrayaan-3 is the third lunar exploration mission LVM3 is ready to fly in the fourth operational mission (M4) of the launcher. The LVM3 rocket, formerly the GSLV MkIII, is the largest and heaviest rocket and is fondly called ‘Fat Boy’ by ISRO scientists for its heavylift capability. It has completed six consecutive successful missions so far and is a combination of three modules – propulsion, lander and rover (which is housed inside the lander).
About 16 minutes after launch, the propulsion module is expected to separate from the rocket and will orbit the earth about 5-6 times in an elliptical circle with a distance of 170 km closest to the earth and 36,500 km away. moving towards the orbit of the Moon.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
The ‘Launch Rehearsal’ simulating the entire launch preparation and process lasting 24 hours is over.Mission Statement: https://t.co/cCnH05sPcW pic.twitter.com/oqV1TYux8V– ISRO (@isro) 11 July 2023
The propulsion module along with the lander, after gaining momentum will proceed for a more than a month long journey to reach the lunar orbit till it passes 100 km above the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-3 is expected to soft land on the Moon on August 23-24
According to ISRO scientists, after reaching the desired position, the lander module will start descending for a soft landing on the south pole region of the Moon and this action is expected to happen on August 23 or 24.
The South Pole region of the Moon was chosen because the South Pole of the Moon is much larger than the North Pole. There may be a possibility of presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it.
The rover, after soft-landing, will come out of the lander module and study the lunar surface through its payload APXS – Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer – to obtain chemical composition and estimate mineralogical composition to further understand Moon’s surface to enhance.
Chandrayaan-3 launch: ISRO’s three main mission objectives
1. To perform a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface.
2. Demonstration of rover walking on the Moon.
3. To conduct scientific experiments in situ.
All about the launch of the Chandrayaan program
The Chandrayaan program was formally announced on 15 August 2003 by former Prime Minister Late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, following which, chandrayaan-1 mission – Launched on October 22, 2008 – on ISRO’s PSLV-C11 rocket.
Weighing 320 tonnes at lift-off, the vehicle used larger strap-on motors to achieve higher payload capacity and carried 11 scientific instruments manufactured in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.
Renowned scientist Mayilasamy Annadurai led the project as the Mission Director of the Chandrayaan-1 mission.
The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at an altitude of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geological mapping of the Moon. While the mission achieved all the desired objectives, the orbit of the spacecraft was raised to 200 km in May 2009, a few months after launch.
The satellite made more than 3,400 orbits around the Moon, more than the ISRO team expected, and the mission eventually ended as scientists at the space agency announced that communication with the spacecraft had been lost on August 29, 2009.
Chandrayaan-2 mission failed to achieve desired soft landing
Buoyed by the success, Chandrayaan-2 was conceived by ISRO as a more complex mission as it carried an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) to explore the uncharted south pole of the Moon. After liftoff on July 22, 2019, Chandrayaan-2 was successfully placed in lunar orbit on August 20 the same year.
Every move of the spacecraft was precise as the lander ‘Vikram’ successfully separated from the orbiter in preparation for landing on the lunar surface. After orbiting the Moon at an altitude of 100 km, the descent of the lander was as per plan and was normal till an altitude of 2.1 km. However, the mission ended abruptly as scientists lost contact with Vikram, which was named after the late Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme.
The Chandrayaan-2 mission failed to achieve the desired soft landing on the lunar surface.
The objective of the Chandrayaan 2 mission was to expand lunar scientific knowledge through detailed studies of topography, seismology, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition and thermo-physical characteristics of the upper soil, leading to a new understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon. May be born ,
(with inputs from agencies)