After being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, India is now charged up for launching Chandrayaan 3 in 2023. India’s Union Minister of State for Space, Mr. Jitendra Singh has responded to the parliament in which he wrote that ISRO is expected to launch the spacecraft, Chandrayaan 3 in the third quarter of the year 2023.
Chandrayaan 3 is a follow-on mission of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) to Chandrayaan 2 which was launched in 2019. This mission is to demonstrate end-to-end ability in roving on the lunar surface and safe landing.
As this mission is a follow-on for Chandrayaan 2, the name of this spacecraft is also the same, i.e. ‘Pragyan’. This spacecraft is going to have a weight of 3900 kg. The cost including the funds for production, materials, testing equipment, and other expenses has been estimated at Rs 7500. This has included the overall expenditure and revenue on the vehicle K.Sivan which gave data of Rs 615 crore as the overall cost for the spacecraft, Chandrayaan 3.
This is India’s 3rd lunar exploration expedition, marked out by ISRO. They have planned this spacecraft mission to display soft landing proficiency on a stellar body of India. It will be able to communicate to Earth via an orbiter that is from Chandrayaan 2.
Chandrayaan 3 consists of Lander and Rover Configuration and will be launched by LVM3(Launch Vehicle Mark- III) from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. The spacecraft's propulsion module will transport the rover and lander configuration to the lunar orbit at a distance of 100 km. It also has a Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and Polari metric measurements from the lunar orbit of our planet Earth.
Lander Payloads in Chandrayaan 3
ChaSTE (Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment) for measuring the thermal conductivity and temperature, ILSA (Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity) to measure the landing site’s seismic activity, LP (Langmuir Probe) for plasma density and its variations estimation. For lunar laser running studies, a passive Laser Retroreflector Array is also accommodated.
Rover Payloads in Chandrayaan 3
For deriving the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site, Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) are installed.
A report mentioned that this much-awaited mission’s launch is likely to take place on July 12 and touchdown on the surface of the moon is expected on August 24. The chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation, S Somnath said the launch window for India’s third lunar mission, New Delhi will be opened on July 12 2023, Saturday.
Chandrayaan 3 has already reached Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota from where the spacecraft will be launched next month and preparations are going on for the launch in July 2023. The payload for Chandrayaan 3 mission was assembled at U.R. Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru.
The prime objective of the Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft mission is to demonstrate a soft landing on the lunar surface. The three countries that have managed a soft landing on the moon so far include the erstwhile Soviet Union, China, and the United States.
