A day after placing Chandrayaan-3 into lunar orbit, the Indian Space Research Organisation said on Sunday that the orbit-lowering procedure was completed successfully. The next similar operation, according to the space agency, will happen on August 9.
The anticipated orbit-lowering maneuver by the spacecraft was completed successfully. It was now 170 km x 4,313 km from the moon’s surface after the engines were retrofitted.
On August 9, 2023, between 1300 and 1400 IST, the next operation to significantly decrease the orbit will take place, the ISRO announced on Sunday. Till August 17, there will be three more moon-bound maneuvers before the landing module, which includes the lander and rover, separates from the propulsion module.
After that, the lander will undergo de-orbiting procedures before making the final descent to the moon. On August 23, ISRO said it would try to make a gentle landing on the moon’s surface.
Since its launch on July 14, ISRO has moved the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft more than five times, placing it in orbits that are getting farther and farther from the planet.
In order to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and wandering on the lunar surface, Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-up mission to Chandrayaan-2. It consists of a lander module, a rover module, and an indigenous propulsion module to test and showcase new technologies needed for interplanetary missions.
The lander and rover configuration will be carried by a propulsion module up to 100 km into lunar orbit. In order to examine the spectral and polarimetric data of the earth from the lunar orbit, the propulsion module contains a Spectro-Polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload. The lander has the capacity to do a soft landing at a chosen location on the moon and deploy the rover, which will conduct an in-situ chemical analysis of the moon’s surface while it is moving. Both the lander and the rover are equipped with scientific packages that will conduct lunar surface research.