BENGALURU: India’s upcoming lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 will be launched on July 14, at 2.35 pm from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, announced the Indian Space Research Organisation in a tweet on Thursday. The date was later confirmed by Secretary of the Department of Space and ISRO Chairman S Somnath at a press briefing on the sidelines of the G20 Fourth Space Economy Leaders Meeting in Bengaluru.
“Chandrayaan-3 is expected to soft land at the moon’s south pole; the area which will have sunlight, between August 23 and 24. The sunlight has to fall on the solar panels of the spacecraft. If we miss the two dates then the landing will be postponed to September around the time when there is sunlight on the moon,” he explained.
The mission life of the lander is one lunar day, which is equal to 14 Earth days. “There is sunlight on the moon for 14-15 days. We have planned the soft landing based on when there is sunrise on the Moon,” he said. The Chandrayaan-3 mission is carrying scientific instruments to study the thermophysical properties of the lunar regolith, lunar seismicity, lunar surface plasma environment and elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site.
While the scope of these scientific instruments on the lander and the rover would fit in the theme of “Science of the Moon”, another experimental instrument will study the spectro-polarimetric signatures of the Earth from the lunar orbit, which would fit in the theme of “Science from the Moon”.
Somnath expressed confidence in a successful lunar soft-landing and said several simulations had been conducted to address the issues encountered during Chandrayaan-2 which failed to soft-land on the lunar surface on September 7, 2019. “The issues have been rectified in Chandrayaan-3 based on data obtained from the simulations from Chandrayaan-2. In fact, because of the data received, we have expanded the area of soft-landing. We have been working for the last two years on Chandrayaan-3 and are quite confident about it. But anything unexpected can happen,” he added.
Speaking about the measures taken to strengthen Chandrayaan3, Somnath said they have increased the tank capacity and are utilizing sophisticated gear. “We also have a higher quantity of propellants this time around,” he said. Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2, to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.
The spacecraft will be launched by LVM3 (Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III), which is a composite of three modules: propulsion, lander, and rover. The lander will soft-land at a specified lunar site and deploy the rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. The propulsion module, which has Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth payload to study the spectral and polarimetric measurements of earth from the lunar orbit, will carry the lander and rover configuration till 100 km of lunar orbit and separate it. Apart from this, the propulsion module also has one scientific payload as a value addition which will be operated post separation of the lander module.
ARTEMIS ACCORD
Regarding the Artemis Accords, Somnath said the discussions are being held at the highest level. The US government has announced that NASA will launch an Indian astronaut to the Space Station by 2024, and India will be part of the Artemis Accords. India subsequently signed the Accords, becoming an official member of the global agreement centered around lunar exploration.