On July 14 at 2:35 pm local time (09:05 GMT), India’s space agency, ISRO, will launch its homegrown Chandrayaan-3 moon mission from the southern island of Sriharikota, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
Chandrayaan, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, would seek to land a rover on the moon and establish India as a powerful force in space exploration.
What is the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission?
The spacecraft will be launched into an elliptical Earth orbit by a 43.5-meter (143-foot) Launch Vehicle Mark-III, or LVM3, launch rocket before looping towards the moon and landing near the moon’s south pole around August 23.
Chandrayaan-3, if successful, will make India the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon, joining the Soviet Union, the United States, and China.
What are the goals of the Chandrayaan-3 mission?
The mission has three primary goals:
First, it must land safely and softly on the moon.
Second, its Pragyan rover should be able to navigate the lunar surface.
Third, it should perform scientific research into the moon’s composition.
The Pragyan rover will have two payloads: two spectrometers that will look for minerals from the old lunar crust.
Furthermore, one payload, the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE), will detect spectral and polarimetric radiation to learn about the signatures of habitable Earth-like planets.
The rover and lander’s mission will last around one lunar day (nearly 14 Earth days).
Six nations have launched 70 successful and partially successful missions to the moon since 1958, however many of them have orbited Earth’s only satellite without landing. According to NASA’s database, a total of 41 flights were unsuccessful.
During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union were the only countries to pursue moon missions. The two Cold War adversaries tried at least 90 moon missions, 40 of which failed.
There were no lunar missions launched in the 1980s.
Japan entered the space race in 1990 with the Hiten Orbiter. China, India, and the European Space Agency launched their first successful orbital trips to the moon in the 2000s.
Watch: Chandrayaan-3 mission launch live
India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission successfully deployed an orbiter in 2019 but lost communication with its lander and crashed-landed near where Chandrayaan-3 would attempt to land.
The event will be live-streamed at 2:35 pm IST on YouTube by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The coverage will begin around an hour before liftoff. (Xanax)
