India’s ambitious mission to Moon–the Chandrayaan-3, is at its final stage. This week two big developments happened–on Thursday, the Lander Module of Chandrayaan-3 got successfully separated from the Propulsion Module, and on Friday, the Lander Module comprising the lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan) successfully underwent a deboosting operation that reduced its orbit to 113 km x 157 km. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said that the Vikram lander will undergo another deboosting on 20 August.
What does deboosting mean?
Deboosting is the process of slowing down to position itself in an orbit where the orbit’s closest point to the Moon (Perilune) is 30 km and the farthest point (the Apolune) is 100 km.
What will happen next?
According to ISRO Chairman, there will be a series of manoeuvres until Chandrayaan-3 lands (on the Moon) on 23rd August. After Saturday’s deboosting, Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander will reorient itself to 90 degrees for safe landing on Moon’s surface. At around 100 metre altitude, the lander will scan the complications, if no such things are found, it would gradually descend, firing its thrusters until touchdown.
Chandrayaan-3 soft-landing challenges
There are four major challenges ahead of the soft landing of the Chandrayaan-3–
- At 100 km altitude, there is no atmosphere on the Moon so parachutes cannot descend slowly.
- Between altitudes 30 km and 100 metre, Chandrayaan-2 failed. At this stage, the lander came within 2.1 km of the Moon but crashed after that due to a software glitch that failed to control the speed during landing.
- At an altitude of 100 metre, Chandrayaan 3 lander Vikram might face unexpected and sudden terrain changes which can cause software glitches or altitude sensor errors.
- During the landing, lunar dust willl blow up, risking sensor errors and premature thruster shutdowns. Even after the speed of the landing reduces, the threat of lunar dust will remain. The dust can obscure the camera lens of the lander and trigger faulty readings.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate rover roving on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments. The lander has the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploys the rover that will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the Moon’s surface during the course of its mobility.
Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
Updated: 19 Aug 2023, 11:08 AM IST