India’s ambitious third lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3, is living up to expectations! This Monday, the spacecraft underwent a successful maneuver that resulted in it making significant progress closer to the Moon’s surface, thereby achieving a near-circular orbit of 150 km x 177 km.
The Journey So Far
After launching on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 uneventfully made its way into lunar orbit by August 5. The next challenge lay in performing two delicate orbit reduction maneuvers, which occurred successfully on August 6 and 9. At this point, the satellite’s orbit was described as ‘near-circular’.
Such circular orbits are particularly desirable since they ensure a constant distance to the planet’s surface – which, in turn, simplifies the equipment needed for further mission objectives and scientific experiments.
This is a crucial step in ISRO’s gradual procedure to reduce Chandrayaan-3’s orbit and position it over the lunar poles.
ISRO plans to perform one more maneuver on August 16, in order to lower the spacecraft to a 100 km orbit.
As the mission progresses, the landing module, comprising the lander and rover, will separate from the propulsion module to make a soft landing in the Moon’s south polar region on August 23.
ISRO Chairman S Somnath confirms it is a complicated process. Shifting the spacecraft from a horizontal to vertical alignment is a critical part of the landing operation, and demands precise calculations, extensive simulation, and judicious fuel consumption.
A Triumph of Science and Engineering
Ever since the Chandrayaan-3’s launch, ISRO has meticulously executed over five moves to lift the spacecraft into orbits increasingly far from Earth. Then, following a crucial “trans-lunar injection” on August 1, the satellite started tracing the path necessary to reach the Moon.
For those unfamiliar with space terminology, a trans-lunar injection is essentially a maneuver that propels a spacecraft from Earth’s orbit towards the Moon. The fact that Chandrayaan-3 was able to complete this complex move is proof of not only the expertise and dedication of the ISRO team but also India’s advancing prowess in the international space exploration arena.
Chandrayaan-3 is not just an ordinary mission; it carries the hopes of a nation and its people. Boasting an indigenous propulsion module, a lander module, and a rover, it aims to demonstrate unprecedented end-to-end capability in safe soft landing and roving on the lunar surface.
The propulsion module carries the lander and rover configuration until they reach the 100 km lunar orbit. Here’s an exciting bit – it is also equipped with a Spectropolarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload! This nifty payload is meant for measuring the spectral and polarimetric properties of Earth from the lunar orbit.
Both the lander and rover come equipped with various scientific payloads geared toward carrying out experiments on the lunar surface. The mission objectives indicate that this space voyage is designed to push the boundaries of our scientific understanding of the Moon.
Indeed, the Chandrayaan-3 Mission has far met, and even exceeded, expectations. As we look forward to further promising updates from this moon voyage, let’s cherish this significant milestone in India’s space exploration history and eagerly await the exciting new discoveries it will surely unfold.
