ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3: India’s Bold Leap Toward the Moon’s South Pole

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India’s space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), launched an ambitious mission to study the Moon’s south pole. Chandrayaan-3 is a probe designed to land on the lunar surface, targeting a touchdown around August 23 to 24, after a previous attempt ended in a partial setback several years ago.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission lifted aboard the Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3) on schedule Friday at 2:35 PM local time (09:05 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. ISRO provided live coverage during the countdown and launch sequence.

Following launch, the spacecraft will orbit Earth before heading toward the Moon. The mission aims to cover a distance of about 384,400 kilometers to reach the lunar surface. ISRO’s chairman, Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, indicated that the craft would enter lunar orbit and perform the prepared landing maneuver around August 23.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has a mass of about 3,900 kilograms and is designed to operate for a lunar day, equivalent to roughly fourteen Earth days.

an unexplored area

The objective for ISRO is to explore the Moon’s largely uncharted south polar region. The mission plans to place scientific instruments on the surface to study the terrain, mineral composition, and the potential presence of water ice in permanently shadowed areas.

If successful, India would become the fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, joining Russia, the United States, and China in this select group.

Historically, missions to the lunar south have been limited, making Chandrayaan-3’s southern landing a first for India and a significant milestone in lunar exploration.

Third mission to the Moon

Chandrayaan-3 marks India’s third lunar exploration effort, following Chandrayaan-1, launched in 2008. Chandrayaan-1 included an orbiter that completed more than 3,400 orbits without a landing between 2008 and 2009. Its instruments helped confirm the presence of water signals on the Moon and, in 2018, analysis of NASA data corroborated ice reserves in permanently shadowed regions.

ISRO’s previous attempt, Chandrayaan-2, occurred in 2019 but ended with a crash during the descent phase, preventing a landing. To advance the program, Chandrayaan-3 features improvements such as fortified landing feet for the lander and software enhancements to better handle potential descent anomalies common in lunar missions.

India’s space program has continued to grow in visibility and capability. DoS, the department overseeing ISRO, has a substantial budget, while the United States’ NASA budget remains much larger in comparison, underscoring the competitive landscape of space exploration today.

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