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Nearly four years after its failure, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch its third lunar exploration mission Chandrayaan-3 on Friday (July 14) from Sriharikota, making India the fourth country to land its spacecraft on the surface of the moon and demonstrate the country’s abilities for safe and soft landing on lunar surface.
The countdown for the launch of mission will begin on Thursday ahead of takeoff on Friday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
“Mission Readiness Review is completed. The board has authorised the launch. The countdown begins tomorrow,” ISRO said in a tweet.
This will be Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) follow-up attempt after Chandrayaan-2 mission faced challenges during its soft landing in 2019.
The ‘Launch Rehearsal’ simulating the entire launch preparation and process has been concluded by the ISRO
According to scientists, after the lift-off at 2.35 pm on Friday, around 16 minutes after lift-off, propulsion module is expected to get separated from the rocket and would orbit the earth for about 5-6 times in an elliptical cycle with 170 km closest and 36,500 km farthest from earth moving towards the lunar orbit.
The propulsion module along with the lander, after gaining speed would proceed for an over a month long journey towards reaching the orbit of the moon until it goes 100 km above the lunar surface.
After reaching the desired position, the lander module would begin its descent for a soft landing on the south pole region of the moon and this action is expected to take place on August 23 or 24, scientists at ISRO said.
The moon’s south pole region has been chosen because the Lunar South Pole remains much larger than that at the North pole. There could be a possibility of presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it.
Friday’s mission follows Chandrayaan-2 where scientists aim to demonstrate various capabilities including reaching the orbit of the moon, making a soft-landing on the lunar surface using a lander, and a rover coming out of the lander to study the surface of the moon.
In the Chandrayaan-2 mission, the lander instead of making a soft landing crashed on the surface leading to an unsuccessful attempt by ISRO. However, this time scientists have left no stone unturned in an effort to ensure smiles in August when the landing is planned.
The significance aboutChandrayaan-3 mission, unlike its unsuccessful predecessor, is that the Propulsion Module has a payload — SHAPE — Spectro- polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth which is to study earth from lunar orbit.
ISRO said the SHAPE is an experimental payload to study the spectro-polarimetric signatures of the Earth in the near-infrared wavelength range.
Apart from the SHAPE payload, the Propulsion Module’s main function is to carry the Lander Module from launch vehicle injection orbit to till lander separation.
The lander module after landing on the surface of the moon has payloads including RAMBHA-LP which is to measure the near surface plasma ions and electrons density and its changes, ChaSTE Chandra’s Surface Thermo Physical Experiment — to carry out the measurements of thermal properties of lunar surface near polar region and ILSA (Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity) to measure seismicity around the landing site and delineating the structure of the lunar crust and mantle.
The Rover, after the soft-landing, would come out of the lander module and study the surface of the moon through its payloads APXS – Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer – to derive the chemical composition and infer mineralogical composition to further enhance understanding of lunar surface.
Rover, which has a mission life of 1 lunar day (14 Earth days) also has another payload Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) to determine the elemental composition of lunar soil and rocks around the lunar landing site, ISRO said.
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Updated: 12 Jul 2023, 10:54 PM IST
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