After four years of failure, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch its third lunar exploration mission Chandrayaan-3 on Friday, July 14 at 2.35 pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
With this, India will become the fourth country to land its spacecraft on the surface of the moon and demonstrate the country’s ability for a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface.
This will be Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) follow-up attempt after the 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.
Scientists said that after the lift-off at 2.35 pm on Friday, around 16 minutes after lift-off, the 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 the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it.
"After the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the surface of the Moon, the rover, which has six wheels, will come out and is expected to work for 14 days on the Moon. With the support of multiple cameras on the rover, we will be able to receive images," Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh mentioned earlier.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission of Chandrayaan-2 and is aimed at demonstrating India's capability in soft landing and roving on the surface of the Moon or the Lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-2, India's second mission to the moon, was launched on July 22, 2019, from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota. But the mission failed after the Vikram lunar lander crashed on the Moon during the early hours.
Singh recalled that the first in the series of Chandrayaan missions -- namely Chandrayaan-1 -- is credited with having discovered the presence of water on the surface of the Moon, which was a new revelation for the world and even the most premier Space agencies like the US's NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) were fascinated by this discovery and used the inputs for their further experiments.
Chandrayyan-3, he said, will be operating at the next level. The spacecraft will use Launch Vehicle Mark-3 developed by ISRO for its launch, he added.
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