Thiruvananthapuram: ISRO Chairman S Somanath announced that Chandrayaan-3, the third edition of India’s lunar mission, is scheduled to be launched between July 12 and 19, 2023, assuming successful tests. He made this announcement during a one-day workshop and space exhibition held at Kothavara St. Xavier’s College in Vaikom, Kottayam district, which was organised by ISRO.
Somanath added that the mission’s final preparations are currently ongoing and would be finished by the end of the month. The LVM-3 rocket will be used to launch Chandrayaan-3, and its construction is already underway. All of the rocket assembly pieces have already arrived at Sriharikota. The launch is scheduled for July 12 until July 19.
To address any potential issues during the upcoming launch, various modifications have been implemented in Chandrayaan-3’s hardware, structure, computers, software, and sensors. The spacecraft has already been transported from the U R Rao Satellite Centre to the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 and aims to demonstrate India’s capabilities in safe lunar landing and surface exploration. ISRO has outlined three primary objectives for the mission: showcasing a successful and gentle landing on the lunar surface, demonstrating rover mobility on the moon, and conducting in-situ scientific experiments.
The propulsion module of Chandrayaan-3 will carry the lander and rover configuration to a lunar orbit of 100 kilometres. Additionally, the propulsion module incorporates the Spectropolarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload, which will study Earth’s spectral and polarimetric characteristics from the lunar orbit. The designated launcher for Chandrayaan-3 is the GSLV-Mk3, which will position the integrated module in an Elliptic Parking Orbit (EPO) measuring 170 x 36,500 kilometres.
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