Chandrayaan-3 is expected to achieve a smooth landing near the Lunar south pole at roughly 70 degrees latitude
India’s third Lunar probe Chandrayaan-3 has crossed 2/3rd the distance to the moon and is likely to be trapped by the Lunar gravitational attraction by 7:00pm (IST), Saturday evening. The next essential operation for the craft will be a Lunar Orbit Insertion, where the vehicle gets captured by Lunar gravitational attraction and begins to orbit the moon. “The (Chandrayaan-3) spacecraft has covered nearly two-thirds of the distance to the moon. Lunar Orbit Injection (LOI) planned on Aug 5, 2023, about 19:00 Hrs. IST,” ISRO said.
In the late hours of July 31st, the vessel executed Trans-Lunar injection (TLI), a long-duration firing of its engines and began a trip that drove it out of Earth’s gravitational pull and towards Lunar gravitational influence. “By firing its engines for the TLI, the vessel obtained departure velocity and set course from the earth orbit towards a position in the neighborhood of the moon. At present, the vehicle is going from Earth to the region of the moon and at the predetermined time it will meet with the moon,” Dr Mylswamy Annadurai (Retd), Former Director of India’s UR Rao Satellite Centre, informed .
Explaining the forthcoming Lunar Orbit insertion, he added, “During the Lunar orbit insertion, the vehicle will approach the area of the moon and within the Lunar gravitational effect. Thereafter, it would activate its onboard engines to slow itself down and get taken into Lunar orbit. Then, it would begin to circle the moon in a highly-elliptical orbit”. Having contributed largely towards India’s inaugural Lunar expedition Chandrayaan-1, as its Project Director, Dr Annadurai acquired the moniker ‘Moon Man of India’.
Initially, to escape from Earth orbit, Chandrayaan-3 sequentially flung itself into orbits farther and farther from the Earth and eventually completed the TLI burn. After being captured in Lunar orbit on Saturday, the ship would perform engine burns that would get it into orbits that gradually travel closer to the moon. This is a method taken in preparation for the eventual Lunar soft-landing that ISRO has scheduled for 23rd August at 5:47pm (IST) Indian standard time.
Chandrayaan-3 is planned to achieve a smooth landing near the Lunar south pole at roughly 70 degrees latitude. Performing a successful Lunar soft landing will make India the fourth nation to accomplish it, following Russia, the USA and China. The 3.9ton Lunar spacecraft was launched into earth orbit on 14th July, using India’s biggest rocket LVM3 and was the seventh successive successful flight of the rocket. The Chandrayaan-3 Lunar lander (with rover) weighs 1750kgs, whilst the rover weighs 26kgs. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft carries a total of six payloads that are installed on the propulsion module, the lander and the rover.