The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday announced that the Chandrayaan-3 underwent a planned orbit reduction maneuver. Due to this maneuver, Chandrayaan came closer to the Moon’s surface, now to 150km x 177km
The next operation to reduce the lunar orbit around the Moon’s surface is planned for August 16 at around 08:30 am. Following this endeavour, the distance between Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft will be reduced to around 100 kms
On August 9, ISRO guided Chandrayaan-3 to an orbit of 174km x 1,437km. The spacecraft’s second endeavour to the Moon came on August 6, a day after the lunar orbit insertion put the Chandrayaan-3 in an elliptical lunar orbit. Post this endeavour to reach the Moon, the distance between the spacecraft and the lunar orbit was reduced from 18,074km x 4,313km
ISRO’s next target is to bring the spacecraft to a circular orbit where it will be 100 km above the lunar surface. This is known as the orbit circularisation phase, which involves using the spacecraft’s engines to push it in a certain way. The phase is aimed at making the spacecraft’s path rounder or near-circular
After the orbit reduction scheduled on August 16, Chandrayaan-3 will prepare for soft landing, the most challenging part. Before the landing attempt, the spacecraft’s propulsion module will separate from its lander
The spacecraft’s landing can be a challenge due to the Lunar South Pole’s rugged terrain comprising huge craters, dark lighting conditions during descent, extremely cold and hot temperatures, and cold traps which contain possible water and ice
ISRO chairman Dr S Somanath assured Indians that Chandrayaan’s lander Vikram will make a soft landing on the surface of the Moon on August 23. He added that Vikram’s landing is certain even if all sensors and two of its engines don’t work
If Chandrayaan-3 makes a soft landing, the lander and rover of the spacecraft will be placed on the Moon’s South Pole. Moon’s South Pole is believed to have potential for new scientific discoveries
India’s third lunar spacecraft was launched on July 14. Chandrayaan-3’s key goal is to perform a lunar soft-landing and perform in-situ analysis near 70 degrees latitude of the lunar surface
The mission is likely to last 14 Earth days or one lunar day, during the rover and the lander of the spacecraft will perform their experiments