Will Chandrayaan-3 make history? All you need to know about the moon mission

The countdown for the launch of the much-awaited Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar exploration mission, has begun. The lift-off will be carried out by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, at 2:35 pm on Friday. Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar mission, will be launched by LVM3 rocket which has been renamed “Bahubali” and weighs 642 tons which is said to be equal to the combined weight of about 130 full grown Asian elephants. Cost of Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission The cost of Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission is said to be Rs 615-crore. Aim of Chandrayaan-3 Mission The aim of Chandrayaan-3 mission is to accomplish what its predecessor Chandrayaan-2 could not, i.e. land softly on the lunar surface and explore it with a rover. A successful soft landing will make India the fourth country, after US, Russia, and China, to achieve the feat. ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 mission faced challenges during its soft landing in 2019. Why did Chandrayaan-2 mission fail? India’s second mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22, 2019 from the same place where its successor will be taking off on Friday, July 14, 2023. The Chandrayaan-2 mission, however, failed after the Vikram lunar lander crashed on the Moon during the early hours, instead of landing softly on it.

ISRO chairperson S Somanath recently said the main issue was that the five engines on the lander developed a slightly higher thrust than expected. The changes in Chandrayaan-3 have been made keeping in mind the errors in Chandrayaan-2. What is different this time? Three main changes have been made for Chandrayaan-3 mission. They are: 1 – Expanded landing area: Chandrayaan-3 mission has been given instructions to land safely anywhere in a 4km x 2.4km area, instead of trying to reach a specific 500m x 500m patch for landing which was targeted by Chandrayaan-2. 2 - Lander provided with more fuel: The lander has been fed with more fuel to enable it to travel longer distances to the landing site or an alternate landing site, if required. 3 - Lander to click images to confirm it reached right location: The lander will not just click pictures during the descent to determine a landing site. High resolution images from Chandrayaan-2 orbiter have been fed into the lander which will take images only to confirm that it has reached the correct location. Apart from this, changes have also been made to the physical structure of the lander. The lander’s central thruster has been removed, reducing the number from five to four. It has got sturdier legs which will ensure it can land even at a higher velocity. The body of the lander now has more solar panels. What remains unchanged? The payloads on the lander and rover are the same as the earlier mission. The lander will have four scientific payloads which will help study lunar quakes, thermal properties of the surface of the moon, changes in the plasma near the surface and a passive experiment to accurately calculate the distance between the moon and the Earth. The Chandrayaan-3 mission will not carry an orbiter and instead use data from the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter. Bahubali rocket that will send Chanrayaan-3 to the moon India’s upgraded rocket will lift Chandrayaan-3 satellite towards the moon. Chandrayaan-3 satellite weigh 3,921 kilograms. The upgraded ‘Bahubali’ rocket is massive, standing 43.5 meters tall. Why was Bahubali rocket chosen for Chandrayaan-3? Chandrayaan-3 will be the sixth flight of the rocket which has a one hundred per cent success rate till date. With this, hopes are mounting of the successful lift off from India’s space port. When will Chandrayaan-3 mission start & end? Around 16 minutes after the lift-off on Friday (July 14) at 2:35 pm, the propulsion module is expected to get separated from the rocket and would orbit the Earth for nearly 5-6 times in an elliptical cycle with 170 km closest and 36,500 km farthest from the planet moving towards the lunar orbit. After gaining the speed, the propulsion module and the lander 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. Soon after reaching the desired position, the lander module would commence its descent for a soft landing on the south pole region of the moon and this is expected to happen somewhere on August 23 or 24, ISRO scientists said. Why moon’s south pole? The south pole region of the moon has been chosen as the Lunar South Pole remains much larger than that at the North pole. There could also 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 had said earlier. India’s first moon mission In 2008, India for the first time attempted a mission to the moon with Chandrayaan-1 which was an orbiter, however, it died about half way into the mission. Not all was bad, as Chandrayaan-1 returned with a major finding that the moon is not a parched desert. It discovered the presence of water molecules on the moon. This finding had changed the geological history of the moon and also had pointed out possibility of human habitation outside the Earth. With inputs from agencies