ISRO to launch Chandrayaan-3 by mid-July: Somanath

The space agency will again try to land a rover on the moon after the failed attempt of 2019

The fully-stacked Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft can be seen in this image from ISRO.

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will begin a fresh bid to land a rover on the moon in the middle of July this year through the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO chairman S Somanath said on Thursday on the sidelines of an international conference on Spacecraft Mission Operations (SMOPS-2023).

The Chandrayaan-3 mission is identical to the Chandrayaan-2 mission, which failed in the final stage of its launch on September 7, 2019 when the Vikram lander crashed on the surface of the moon while negotiating an automated soft landing.

“Chandrayaan-3 is nearing launch. The satellite has moved from U R Rao Satellite Centre (Bengaluru) to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (Sriharikota). The rocket is LVM (Launch Vehicle Mark)-3 and its integration is currently going on. The rocket will be fully ready by this month-end and we will be assembling the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft to the rocket possibly by the beginning of July. The launch is in the middle of July,” he ISRO chairman said.

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“We are going on the same path as Chandrayaan-2 because we have already done that and we are experienced. However, if there are any contingencies, appropriate changes will be carried out. The landing site is going to be the same,” he said.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission had failed within a few kilometres of the surface of the moon. “The first phase of descent was performed nominally from an altitude of 30 km to 7.4 km above the moon surface. The velocity was reduced from 1,683 m/s to 146 m/s. During the second phase of the descent, the reduction in velocity was more than the designed value. Due to this deviation, the initial conditions at the start of the fine braking phase were beyond the designed parameters. As a result, Vikram hard-landed within 500 m of the designated landing site,” the government had told the Lok Sabha in a reply to a question.

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Somanath also said that ISRO has developed a new test facility for its semi-cryogenic engine, which is under development, in order to compensate for lack of access to facilities in Russia and Ukraine following the conflict in the region.

“The engine development has been going on for several years, around 15 years. This engine has now reached the first power head — without the primary combustion but with the entire turbo machinery feeding into the hot gas — this assembly is already made,” Somanath said.

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“We have realised a huge test facility. This was commissioned just last month. We have installed it and did the first-ever feed or propellant feed into it. This is successful now. In another few days we will be starting the firing of the engine. The tests will continue. Another six to seven tests are needed,” the ISRO chairman said.

“We wanted to do the tests somewhere else but the geopolitical situation did not allow this. We accelerated and realised the facility in India and ISRO,” he said.

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