The spacecraft was launched on July 14 and is expected to touch down on August 23
Chandrayaan-3 was launched on July 14, 2023. Photo: ISRO The lander of Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has successfully separated from the propulsion module, the national space agency announced on August 17, 2023. The lunar mission had successfully established a nearly circular orbit around the moon and is expected to make a landing on the lunar south pole in six days.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 and is made up of a propulsion module and a lander, which has a rover on board. The rover will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface while travelling the surface.
Source: ISRO
The spacecraft was launched on July 14 and entered the lunar orbit on August 5. Orbit reduction manoeuvres were carried out on the satellite on August 6, 9, 14 and 16, ahead of the separation of both its modules. The lander module, named Vikram, is expected to touch down on the moon on August 23, 2023.
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The spacecraft was in an orbit of 153 kilometres into 163 km after the firing on August 16.
Vikram will descend to a slightly lower orbit on August 18, around 4 pm, Indian Standard Time (IST). The propulsion module, meanwhile, will continue its journey in the current orbit for months / years. It has Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit.
“LM is successfully separated from the Propulsion Module (PM). LM is set to descend to a slightly lower orbit upon a deboosting planned for tomorrow around 1600 Hrs., IST,” said the space agency in a post on microblogging website X, which was previously known as Twitter. India now has three satellites orbiting the moon, it added.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Luna-25 is gearing up for lunar landings next week and was launched on August 10. It is taking a more direct trajectory to the Moon, potentially allowing it to attempt a landing as early as August 21, in about 11 days, according to a report by website News18.
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This is India’s third attempt at landing on the moon. A last-minute glitch in the landing guidance on the software led to the Chandrayaan-2 lander crashing after entering lunar orbit.
There are three main objectives for the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which include:
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