Chandrayaan-3, India’s latest Moon mission, has entered the lunar orbit, the country’s space agency has said.
The spacecraft with an orbiter, lander and a rover lifted off on 14 July. It will try to set the lander and rover on the lunar surface on 23 or 24 August.
If successful, India will be the first country to land near the Moon’s little-explored south pole.
It will be only the fourth to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.
After the spacecraft orbited the Earth for more than a week, it was sent into the translunar orbit on Tuesday through a slingshot manoeuvre.
The third in India’s programme of lunar exploration, Chandrayaan-3 is expected to build on the success of its earlier Moon missions.
It comes 13 years after the country’s first Moon mission in 2008, which discovered the presence of water molecules on the parched lunar surface and established that the Moon has an atmosphere during daytime.
Chandrayaan-2 - which also comprised an orbiter, a lander and a rover - was launched in July 2019 but it was only partially successful. Its orbiter continues to circle and study the Moon even today, but the lander-rover failed to make a soft landing and crashed during touchdown.
The lander (called Vikram, after the founder of Isro) weighs about 1,500kg and carries within its belly the 26kg rover which is named Pragyaan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom.
India’s space agency has released the first images of the Moon taken by the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which entered lunar orbit on Saturday.
The images show craters on lunar surface getting larger and larger as the spacecraft draws closer.
Now that the craft has entered the Moon’s orbit, scientists will begin reducing the rocket’s speed gradually to bring it to a point which will allow a soft landing for Vikram.
“A series of manoeuvres have been planned to gradually reduce the spacecraft’s orbit and position it over the lunar poles,” says Isro.
“After some manoeuvres, the propulsion module will separate from the lander while in orbit. Then a series of complex braking manoeuvres will be executed to facilitate a soft landing in the South Pole region of the Moon on 23 August,” it adds.
What time will the Chandrayaan-3 lander arrive at the Moon?
Chandrayaan-3’s lander is scheduled to start its descent at 17:45 India time on Wednesday (13:45 BST)
The lander will attempt touchdown at 18:04 local time (13:04 BST)
Scientists say the few minutes prior to landing will be the most crucial as the lander attempts to make touchdown on an area that is “very uneven, full of craters and boulders”, with some predicting it will be “15 minutes of terror”
If the landing is successful, Isro is expected to start releasing images from the lunar surface at a later stage
I don’t believe any country who has pioneered space travel have not had at least one unfortunate incident. I think the Indians failed on their first attempt to land on the moon…
I think the challenger accident was the biggest one so far, with the greatest loss of life…
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which distributes aid, sent India £33.4 million in aid cash in 2022/23. But the FCDO’s annual report, published this week, reveals that the total is set to rise to £57 million in 2024/25.18 Jul 2023
I’m not going to clap and cheer …imo the money involved in India’s space program could have been better spent .
For example relieving,poverty and misery.
For years I’ve been a supporter of a charity then called Help the Aged now Age UK to support a Indian granny who lived a dire poverty with health issues …
This space race thing when there’s so much suffering is obscene.
Whereas I agree with that the money could have been better spent in our own country Ripple, £33 million seems quite a poultry amount when compared to the £4.6 billion we have sent to perpetuate a war that we can never win and perpetuate the killing of troops and civilians on both sides.
Quote:- How much money has UK promised to Ukraine? As the second largest donor, the UK has committed £4.6 billion in military assistance to Ukraine so far (£2.3 billion in 2022 and a commitment to match that funding in 2023).14 Aug 2023
However, no matter how much money you throw at poverty and the homeless here, it will always be present at some stage or other.
India’s space agency has released new footage that shows Chandrayaan-3’s rover for the first time ever. The video was taken just hours after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the south pole. It shows Pragyaan (Sanskrit for wisdom) exiting the lander by sliding down a ramp and taking first steps on the lunar surface. The Vikram lander - carrying the rover in its belly - had successfully touched down as planned on Wednesday evening.
Pragyaan - which moves at a speed of 1cm per second - is now roaming around the rocks and craters, gathering crucial data and images to be sent back to Earth for analysis. With each step, it’s also leaving on the Moon’s surface the imprint of Isro’s logo and emblem embossed on its six wheels.
The rover is carrying two scientific instruments which will try to find out what minerals are present on the lunar surface and study the chemical composition of the soil. Pragyaan will communicate only with the lander which will send the information to the orbiter from Chandrayaan-2 - which is still circling the Moon - to pass it on to the Earth for analysis.
The landing on Wednesday coincided with the start of a lunar day - a day on the Moon equals a little over four weeks on Earth and this means the lander and rover will have 14 days of sunlight to charge their batteries. Once night falls, they will discharge and stop working. It is not yet clear whether they will come back to life when the next lunar day starts.
