Chandrayaan-3: Spacecraft is integrated with rocket body

Chandrayaan-3, which is India’s second attempt to land on the moon, is slated for launch between July 13 and July 19, with July 13 being the most probable day right now. The landing would happen about a month later, sometime in the middle of August.

Uppermost part of LVM-3 rocket that will fly Chandrayaan-3 later this month, at Sriharikota Wednesday. (ANI)

Unlike the Chandrayaan-2 mission, Chandrayaan-3 does not have an Orbiter component. The lander and rover are designed to operate, and collect data, on the moon’s surface for one lunar day, which is equivalent to approximately 14 days on earth. That is the entire mission life of Chandrayaan-3. After the landing, the rover would separate itself from the lander and move around on the surface of the moon, carrying out experiments and collecting data.

The LVM3 rocket, which earlier used to be called GSLV MkIII, is a 43.5 m tall three-stage launch vehicle with a lift-off mass of 640 tons. Currently, this is the most powerful rocket developed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was the same rocket that had carried Chandrayaan-2 as well. LVM3 has made six successful flights till now, the latest of which happened in March this year when it placed 36 satellites of OneWeb company into their orbits.

The lander module of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is fitted with four instruments, while the rover would carry two instruments of its own. These instruments will study the surface and atmosphere of the moon, with the main objective of learning more about their composition.

Learning from the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, in which the lander and rover component had been unable to reduce their descent speed during the final moments and crash landed on the moon’s surface as a result, ISRO has integrated several new technologies in Chandrayaan-3 to avoid failure in a similar kind of situation. At the time of landing, the lander’s speed is supposed to be reduced to less than 2 metres per second.