News story by Nisha Anand
Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar exploration mission, lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on July 14th in the Indian Space Research Organization‘s (ISRO) hopes to land the country among the group of nations to have achieved a soft landing on the Moon’s surface.
The mission follows the ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2, which failed in its attempted at a desired soft landing on the lunar surface in September of 2019, after the lander suffered a communication failure with the ground stations at an altitude of just 2.1 km. from the surface of the Moon.
Chandrayaan-3 will journey for more than a month before landing on the lunar surface in August. If successful, the mission will make India the fourth nation, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China, to have accomplished this feat
The ISRO explained the three main objectives – safe and soft landing on the Moon, to demonstrate the Rover roving on its surface and to study the lunar environment. The spacecraft consists of a six-wheeled lander and rover module, which is configured with payloads to provide data related to the moon’s surface.
“Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous Lander module (LM), Propulsion module (PM) and a Rover with an objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions,” the ISRO explained on its website about the project.
Original article courtesy of the Hindustan Times.