NB Explains | ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 is now in last leg of launch prep; here is what you should know about mission

As ISRO is gearing up for the launch day of its third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3, the space agency has completed the rocket assembly & the spacecraft has been fully integrated with the GSLV Mark III launch vehicle at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

 

 

A final round of tests will be done before Chandrayaan-3 is assembled on the rocket, the officials said, adding that the launch vehicle is expected to be moved from the vehicle assembly building to the second launchpad by next week.

 

The launch is planned between 12 and 19th of this month. But a final announcement is awaited.

 

 

Though the Chandrayaan-3 will be a mission repeat of Chandrayaan-2, however, it will only carry the lander and the rover to replace the damaged components from C2, but not an orbiter.

 

There will be certain improvements over the second lunar mission or the Chandrayaan-2. The rover of the upcoming mission will have in it a seismometer, heat flow experiment, and spectrometers.

 

 

 

A major addition to Chandrayaan-3 is the inclusion of the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload. The equipment is meant to study the spectral and polarimetric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit.

 

 

The aim of this mission is to achieve a successful landing of the lander on the moon's surface, followed by the development of a rover to carry out a range of experiments.

 

 

To demonstrate a Safe and Soft Landing on Lunar Surface

To demonstrate Rover roving on the moon and

To conduct in-situ scientific experiments.

 

Overall, the primary aim of Chandrayaan-3 remains the same: studying the lunar south pole. It will particularly focus on the dark side of the Moon, which has not seen sunlight in billions of years and is believed to have vast mineral reserves, ice and possibly water.

 

To achieve the mission objectives, several advanced technologies are present in Lander.

 

 

Chandrayaan-3 carries a lander-rover combination, which will be housed within the spacecraft's propulsion module.

 

Weighing around 2,148 kilograms, this propulsion module will transport the lander-rover duo into the final lunar orbit, nearly 100 kilometres above the lunar surface. The spacecraft's lander and propulsion module, weighing a total of 3900 kg, will carry the lander-rover combo into the final lunar orbit before separating.

Chandrayaan-3 mission will carry scientific instruments to the moon in order to study its thermophysical properties, lunar seismicity, lunar surface plasma environment and elemental composition

 

 

The third lunar mission of India has been allocated a budget of Rs 615 Crore.

 

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to join an elite group of countries that have achieved the remarkable feat of soft landing on the lunar surface.