Science
Chandrayaan-3 Mission: India’s Next Lunar Endeavor
Chandrayaan-3 Mission will primarily focus on landing a rover on the lunar surface and conducting scientific experiments.
Est: 2 min
Updated: August 23, 2023
The much-awaited Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has arrived at Sriharikota and will soon be integrated with India’s most powerful rocket, GSLV-MKIII or LVM-3, as the country prepares for its third mission to the Moon in July.
Chandrayaan-3 comprises an indigenous lander module, propulsion module, and a rover. Its primary objective is to develop and demonstrate new technologies necessary for inter-planetary missions, according to ISRO.
Isro chairman S Somanath revealed, “Isro is planning to launch the Chandrayaan-3 mission in July. The launch window will be from July 12 onwards.” Prior to its arrival in Sriharikota, Chandrayaan-3 successfully underwent critical tests, demonstrating its resilience in the challenging acoustic environment during lunar launch.
Learned from the past mission’s challenges, the design and engineering of Chandrayaan-3 have been significantly enhanced to ensure robustness and avoid previous issues. While the mission parameters remain the same, the spacecraft’s updated design aims to prevent a recurrence of the crash landing.
Chandrayaan-3 will lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in July and enter an elliptical orbit around the Moon. It will then attempt a soft landing on the south pole region. The mission, spanning 14 Earth days, seeks to demonstrate safe landing, enable rover exploration on the lunar surface, and conduct in-situ scientific experiments. Both the lander and rover carry a range of scientific payloads for this purpose.
Chandrayaan-1 was launched on October 22, 2008, utilizing the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22, 2019, with the lander encountering difficulties during the landing phase on September 6, 2019. However, the orbiter remains operational, continuing to gather valuable data.
