With only hours left for the lift-off, anticipation is building around the launch India’s third lunar exploration mission, Chandrayaan-3, by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), on Friday.
The GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle, which will release the moon lander and rover into space, will lift off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota at 2.30 pm. The countdown for the launch began on Thursday at 14:35:17 IST, ahead of the lift-off on Friday.
Chandrayaan-3 will be ISRO’s follow-up attempt after the Chandrayaan-2 mission faced challenges during its soft landing on the lunar surface in 2019 and was eventually deemed to have failed its mission objectives.
The ‘Launch Rehearsal’ simulating the entire launch preparation and process was concluded earlier by the ISRO.
Chandrayaan-3 is equipped with a lander, a rover and a propulsion module. It weighs around 3,900 kilograms.
The ISRO’s third lunar exploration mission is equipped with eight payloads. The experiments to be carried out by Chandrayan 3 include the Vikram lander (named after Space scientist Vikram Sarabhai) which will carry 4 instruments, Pragyan (Saanskrit for Wisdom) rover will carry two instruments and Propulsion Module or the Orbiter will carry one experiment.
Vikram lander’s experiments include Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure surface thermal properties, Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) to measure seismicity around the landing site, Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA) to study the gas and plasma environment, and Passive laser retroreflector array provided by NASA for lunar ranging studies.
