‘Moon within reach’: Chandrayaan-3 lander completes final deboosting op; descent expected to begin on August 23

Union Minister Jitendra Singh, meanwhile, announced, “Prepare for landing! Countdown begins… as destination Moon draws just within reach”.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft, which was expected to reach the moon between August 21 and 23, suffered a technical glitch during a pre-landing manoeuvre on Saturday. “During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, said in a Telegram post. It did not specify if the incident will prevent the spacecraft from landing on the moon.

Both Russia and India aim to become the first country to land on the moon’s South Pole. Chandrayaan-3 is India’s second attempt at carrying out a “soft landing” on the lunar surface, after Chandrayaan-2 crashed during the final landing manoeuvre.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft comprises two parts. The Lander Module, which also houses the rover component, is designed to travel to the Moon. The leftover part, the Propulsion Module, whose job was to transport the Lander to the Moon orbit, will continue to go around the Moon for a few months, possibly even years, in an outer orbit.

On Thursday (August 17), the mission had moved into the last phase of its journey to the Moon, with the Lander Module successfully separating from the main spacecraft.

Earlier, ISRO had said the lander will carry out two orbit-reduction manoeuvres on its own, first getting into the circular 100 x 100 km orbit, and then further closer to the moon in the 100 x 30 km orbit – from which the lander was to begin its final descent.