The third edition of India's Moon Mission, Chandrayaan III, is scheduled to take off on 14 July at 2: 35 PM onboard a Launch Vehicle Mark 3 LVM 3 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. India's scientific community and Indians across the world are eagerly awaiting the successful launch of the successful India's moon mission.
The countdown for the historic mission began on Thursday. ISRO wrote on Thursday that the countdown leading to the launch tomorrow at 14: 35: 17 hrs. The IST has started. Chandrayaan 3 is a follow-up mission after the crash landing of Chandrayaan - 2 in September 2019 due to a software glitch. ISRO has implemented several enhancements in Chandrayaan - 3 in order to ensure success this time. It is rumored to land on moon on August 23.
Chandrayaan III is a complex spacecraft that comprises an indigenous propulsion system, a lander system, and a rover, with the aim of creating and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions. The propulsion module is expected to carry the lander and rover from injection orbit until 100 km of its moon orbit. It also carries a Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planetary Earth SHAPE payload to monitor the spectral and polarimetric measurements of the Earth from the lunar orbit.
A successful mission would see India join an elite group of nations that have achieved such a feat, which includes the United States, China and the former Soviet Union.
Ahead of India's ambitious space programme Chandrayaan-3, a former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan said its successful landing will make India only the fourth nation to achieve this and it would increase the potential for space science development in the country.
This will also help India increase its share in the global space industry, he said. The Indian share in the $600 billion industry is currently abysmal 2 per cent.
Instead of a success-based design in Chandrayaan - 2, the space agency opted for a failure-based design in Chandrayaan - 3, focused on what all can fail and how to protect it and ensure a successful landing.
Chandrayaan 2 is a spaceship containing the Vikram lander, Pragyan rover, and an orbiter, and Chandrayaan - 3 will launch with only a lander and a rover. Chandrayaan 3 will use the Orbiter, already hovering above the Moon, launched with Chandrayaan - 2 for its communication and terrain mapping requirements.
The Chandrayaan 3 lander mission is equipped with lander hazard detectors and avoidance cameras for coordinate with the orbiter and the mission control during the landing on the Moon.
ISRO chief said that the area of landing has been expanded from 500 m x 500 m to four km by 2.5 km. It can fly everywhere, so it doesn't limit you to aiming for a specific point. It will target a specific point only in nominal conditions. So, if the performance is poor, it can land anywhere within that area, he said.
He said the Chandrayaan - 3 has more fuel, so it has more capacity to travel or handle dispersion or move to an alternate landing site. The ISRO chief said the Vikram lander now has additional solar panels on other surfaces to ensure that it generates power no matter how it lands.