INDIA'S THIRD lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 will be launched from the country's only spaceport Sriharikota on July 13 at 2.30 pm, senior officials said on Wednesday. The spacecraft will travel just over a month and likely land on the surface of the moon around August 23. The landing site for the integrated Vikram lander and Pragyan rover will remain the same as the previous mission: near the south pole of the moon at 70 degrees latitude. If successful, Chandrayaan-3 will become the first mission to soft land near the southern pole of the moon. The site was selected as it has several craters that remain permanently in shadows, increasing the chances of examining water ice. Chandrayaan 1, which also carried NASA payloads, was instrumental in confirming the presence of water and hydroxyl (OH) molecules on the moon. The mission will also make India the fourth country in the world to achieve soft landing on the moon after the US, Russia and China. The position remains open for India as the lander missions by Israel and Japan that were launched since the previous Chandrayaan mission also failed. The current mission will follow a similar trajectory to what was planned for the previous mission, with the orbit of the spacecraft being raised several times till it slingshots out of Earth's gravity. Once the spacecraft reaches the moon and is captured in its gravity, the orbit will be lowered to a 100x100 km circular orbit before making the descent. The descent phase of the vehicle had been described as “15 minutes of terror” by the previous ISRO chairperson K Sivan. With the orbiter from the previous mission already in place around the moon, the spacecraft will fly only the lander-rover configuration sitting atop a propulsion module. “The lander-rover configuration has remained more or less the same; more sensors have been added to ensure the mission goes as planned. Several tests were also conducted to ensure that the mission is a success,” said a senior official. Chandrayaan 2, which was planned to demonstrate soft landing and roving, crash landed 2.1 km from the surface of the moon.
