BENGALURU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to virtually join the landing programme of Chandrayaan 3 from South Africa in the last 15-20 minutes of the Lander’s final descent to the Moon, said informed sources.
The PM is on a three-day official visit to SA to attend the 15th BRICS summit. As per ISRO, the Lander Module (LM) and rover are scheduled to soft land on the designated area on the Moon’s south pole at 18.04 hours, which will coincide with the sunrise in the region. The LM will receive its last command from the Earth station at 5.47 pm to initiate the automatic landing system (ALS) when it will be 30km from the Moon’s surface.
For the next 700 seconds after ALS, that is, 11.5 minutes, the LM will be in a rough breaking phase. The four engines will fire up and instead of free descent the Lander will be in controlled descent and will reach 7.4 km from the Moon. In the next 10 seconds, it will descend to a height 6.8 km away from the Moon and become vertical. Later, it will come down to either 1,300 metres or 800 metres, at which point the Lander will choose the landing site. If the surface below has a crater or a boulder, it has been programmed to choose an alternate site for a safe and soft landing.
Plaint filed against Prakash Raj for comment on Chandrayaan
Bagalkot: Accusing multi-lingual actor Prakash Raj of making fun of India’s prestigious Chandrayaan 3 project on his social media X account, Sriram Sene members filed a complaint against him at Banahatti police station in the district on Tuesday. The actor posted a caricature showing Chandrayaan sending a photo of a man, who is on the Moon, pouring tea.
The post, however, did not go down well with right-wing activists who accused him of insulting the scientists who are involved in such projects. In a video message, the complainant, Shivanand Gaikwad -- who is a member of Sriram Sene, alleged that Prakash Raj has lost his mental balance. Gaikwad demanded the actor’s arrest. No FIR has been filed against the actor, said police.