Image Credit Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-3
A massive step
41 days to a historic achievement. If everything goes well, 23rd August 2023 will be a ‘Day of Pride’ for Indian Space Research Organization. Yes, Lander is expected to land on Lunar South Pole on 23rd August.
Once succeeded India will be the fourth country to successfully soft land on moon. Needless to say, various factors make the great venture priceless.
Let’s dive in for more details of this prestigious project, Rs 650 Crore mission.
Previous Missions
A brief on Chandrayan 1 & 2
Chandrayan – 1
The project was in 2008. A vehicle named Moon Impact Probe was crash landed on the surface of the moon. This process is called hard landing. Of course, maximum data were collected prior to the landing.
Chandrayan 2
The mission was in 2019. The project was aimed to soft land on the surface and explore. Unfortunately the move failed.
What went wrong?
The Probe was supposed to soft land. But there were technical failures and the vehicle lost communication with the Research Centre. Eventually ended up in a crash land. However the Orbiter reached orbit and still sends data from the moon. So the mission is never a total failure!
Chandrayan 3 can be considered a continuation of the previous project. 3 components are there in this project. And they are launched using GSLV Mark 3 Rocket. Through various stages, they will be reaching the orbit.
Eventually, Lander will make a soft landing. And Pragyan (Rover) will be separated from lander and explore the Lunar surface.
Learning from the past experiences will definitely add to a perfect launch of
Chandrayan 3. Indeed, there are many modifications. Proactive and protective measures are taken to prevent any possible threat to the mission. ISRO chairman describes the design “failure-based”. Of course the design focuses on eliminating each and every reason to fail.
Significance of Chandrayan – 3
USA, Russia and China have made soft landing on moon. But Chandrayan 3 is quite different from them. Let’s look into few facts.
- The vehicle is planned to land on the South Pole. And the successful completion of the mission will make India the very first country to land on South Pole.
- Never an easy task as this region is full of small and huge craters. Still the organisation seems to be pretty confident!
- In addition to the above, the area is unimaginably dark and cold. So operating any equipment in such extreme weather and environment is highly challenging.
No wonder the ISRO chairman termed the final 15 minutes of this mission “15 minutes of terror”!
Many of us are confused or have a question or a doubt which may sound justifiable.
Is Chandrayan – 3 worth this much hard work and investment?
Undoubtedly the mission is worthy. Primarily, this will immensely benefit Science and the whole Mankind. As mentioned earlier, the mission is the pride of our country as well.
Enough homework is done. Time has come to move together to further heights!