India Launched Chandrayaan-3

 

India Launched Chandrayaan-3

At 2:35 p.m. IST on July 14, 2023, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, India, successfully launched Chandrayaan-3. On August 5, 2023, the spacecraft reached lunar orbit.

 It would take roughly 40 days for the spacecraft to travel the nearly 3,84,000 kilometres between the Earth and the Moon, significantly longer than it would take for the Apollo mission undertaken by Nasa.

CHANDRAYAAN-3 INTEGRATION WITH THE LAUNCH CAR The Chandrayaan-3 rover, within its lander, awaits its launch into lunar orbit atop the propulsion module. The aeroshell fairings of the rocket, which shield the spacecraft from damage during liftoff and ascent, are seen in the background.ISRO Image

The Chandrayaan-3 project's lander and rover are similar to the ones used in the previous mission, Chandrayaan-2. The Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander successfully entered a "fine braking" mode in September 2019, bringing it to within 5 kilometres (3 miles) of the Moon. This would have allowed it to land on the lunar surface without causing any damage. Chandrayaan-2, like its successor, was aiming for the Moon's south pole, where ice has been discovered in permanently shadowed craters.

A software error forced Vikram to deviate from its intended path, and ISRO eventually lost communication with the spacecraft. Vehicle debris was spotted by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter around 750 meters (half a mile) from where it was supposed to land.

ISRO claims to have improved the lander's software and conducted extensive testing in light of the lessons learned from the failed Vikram mission, ensuring that Chandrayaan-3 will succeed where its predecessor failed. Although Chandrayaan-3 lacks an orbiter, the lander's propulsion module has a research instrument that will treat Earth as an exoplanet and collect data for future exoplanet investigations.

How will Chandrayaan-3 get to the lunar surface?

The entire process, from liftoff to landing Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon's surface, will take about 40 days. India's heavy lift vehicle, the LVM3 rocket, which can carry about eight metric tons to low Earth orbit, was launched on July 14 to kick off the mission. (For comparison's sake, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can carry over 23 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.)

Using the LVM3, the spacecraft and its attached propulsion module may reach a maximum altitude of about 36,500 kilometres (22,700 miles) above the Earth's surface. The propulsion module will raise the orbit several times before it enters lunar orbit.

The propulsion module will bring Chandrayaan-3 into a circular orbit around the Moon at an altitude of 100 km (62 mi). The spaceship will continue to the Moon's equator while the lander deorbits and settles in the south polar region. Horizontal and vertical velocities of the lander at contact should be less than 0.5 meters per second (1.6 feet per second) and 2 meters per second (6.5 feet per second), respectively.