CHENNAI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday successfully conducted a 24-hour launch simulation of the LVM3 launcher carrying Chandrayaan-3 at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-Shar), Sriharikota, sources told TNIE.
Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar exploration mission, will take off on July 14 to embark on its 40-day (approx) journey to the moon. Indian Space Research Organisation said the mission will be executed in 10 phases, which are broadly divided into the earth-centric phase, lunar transfer phase and moon-centric phase.
ISRO chairman S Somanath did not divulge details on when the spacecraft will enter lunar orbit. “All these details will be discussed post-launch.” He had previously hinted the landing on the moon would take place in the last week of August.
“If the launch takes place on July 14, we will be ready for landing on the moon, possibly by the last week of August. The date (landing) is decided when there is sunrise on the moon. When we are landing, sunlight must be there. So the landing will be on August 23 or 24,” Somnath had told reporters on the sidelines of the G-20 Space Economy Leaders Meeting in Bengaluru earlier this month.
Sources in SDSC-Shar told TNIE, the 24-hour countdown for the Chandrayaan-3 mission will begin at 2.35 pm on July 13. According to the nominal flight sequence released by ISRO, the satellite separation will happen about 16-17 minutes after lift-off.
After the integrated satellite module is successfully injected in earth orbit, manoeuvres will be carried before the module enters lunar transfer phase and is inserted into lunar orbit. The final phase would be inserting the module into circular orbit around the moon.
Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous lander module, propulsion module and a rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for inter-planetary missions. According to ISRO, the lander will have the capability to soft land at specific lunar sites and deploy the rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface. The lander and the rover have scientific payload to carry out experiments on the lunar surface.
Recently, Somanath said ISRO, instead of a success-based design in Chandrayaan-2, focused on what can fail during the mission and introduced fail-safe measures to protect Chandrayaan-3 to ensure a successful landing. “We looked at many failures - sensor failure, engine failure, algorithm failure, calculation failure. So, whatever the failure, we want it to land at the required speed and rate. So, there are different failure scenarios calculated and programmed inside,” Somanath had said.
