Chandrayaan-3 Launch Date 14 July: The Chandrayaan-3 mission is set to launch towards the moon on Friday, July 14 at 5:05 a.m. from the Sriharikota on the India’s east coast.
A three-stage rocket called the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3) will ferry the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft’s robotic moon lander and rover duo into an Earth parking orbit, a stable circular path around Earth that allows the mission team to ensure all instruments are working properly after launch. Soon after, the spacecraft will be sent into deep space on a lunar transfer trajectory.
When Chandrayaan-3 approaches our celestial neighbour, its engines will activate, propelling the spacecraft into a tight circular orbit around the moon, roughly 62 miles (100 kilometres) above the lunar surface. If all goes as planned, the lander and rover will safely arrive on the moon’s surface on August 23 or August 24.
The mission’s success is dependent on the spacecraft landing smoothly roughly 70 degrees south of the moon’s south pole. The landing will take place “only when the sun rises on the moon, to get 14 Earth days, or one lunar day, to work,” according to Arun Sinha, a former top scientist at India’s national space agency that is launching and conducting this project. If the team is unable to land the spacecraft in August, the next opportunity will be in late September, according to ISRO chairman S. Somanath at a press conference last week.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft carries a lunar lander dubbed Vikram, which is outfitted with four sensors to measure thermal conductivity and detect moonquakes near the landing location, among other things.
Pragyan, the rover, will roll off Vikram and investigate the local terrain, with its onboard cameras assisting it in avoiding lunar obstacles. While conducting science experiments, it is anticipated to remain within the lander’s field of view at all times.
Pragyan is equipped with two equipment for on-site investigations, which scientists anticipate will yield vital technical information about the moon’s composition around the landing spot. Pragyan, for example, has a laser spectrometer onboard that will zap lunar regolith in order to analyse and categorise the various gases emitted, similar to NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been firing lasers at Martian rocks to determine their composition.
Chandrayaan-3 is India’s second attempt at a lunar landing. The country’s last attempt, Chandrayaan-2, failed in 2019 after the spacecraft lost communication with Earth and fell onto the lunar surface. ISRO has not yet publicly released a report on the mission failure analysis. However, even when it was close to the landing spot, the spacecraft continued to accelerate rather than slow down, according to Somanath during last week’s press briefing.
Meanwhile, Chandrayaan-2’s lunar orbiter is performing properly and will be utilised for backup communications with Earth if Chandrayaan-3’s propulsion module, the main transmission satellite, fails, according to scientists.
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