Chandrayaan-3 gets closer to Moon

Sriharikota: The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft moved closer to Moon's surface on Wednesday after it underwent another orbit reduction manoeuvre, ISRO said. India's ambitious third Moon mission's spacecraft entered the lunar orbit on August 5 and will drop to the 100 km orbit by next week.

"Even closer to the moon's surface. Chandrayaan-3's orbit is reduced to 174 km x 1437 km following a manoeuvre performed on Wednesday," ISRO said in a tweet. The next operation is scheduled for August 14, between 11.30am and 12.30pm, ISRO said. ISRO will lead the vessel through two more orbit maneuvers on August 14 and 15 to bring Chandrayaan-3 significantly closer to Moon's surface. Following this the landing module - comprising the lander and rover - will break away from the propulsion module. The lander is expected to undergo a "deboost" (the process of slowing down) and make a soft landing on the south polar region of the Moon on August 23.

Following its landing on the Moon, the lander and the rover currently housed within Chandrayaan-3 will carry out experiments on the lunar surface. The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate rover roving on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The entire design of the lander ‘Vikram’ has been made in a manner that makes sure that it would be able to handle failures. However, ISRO plans to have a proper touchdown even if its sensors and engines fail completely.