Chandrayaan-3 Launched Today

The third lunar mission of India, the Chandrayaan-3 is all set to be launched today, July 14, 2023, at 2.35 pm. The mission will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre located at Sriharikota in Andra Pradesh. 

The lander, which has been named Vikram, is expected to land on the surface of the Moon on August 23 or 24. The Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) is expecting Chandrayaan-3 to land on the Moon during Sunrise so that they get 14-15 Earth days to work. If this does not seem like a possibility, the space research organization will postpone the landing till September. 

Before Chandrayaan-3, ISRO had launched Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2 on October 22, 2008 and July 22, 2019, respectively. While Chandrayaan-1 made a successful landing on the Moon in November 2008, Chandrayaan-2 crash-landed and the mission was unsuccessful. Chandrayaan-3 was created as a follow-up to Chandrayaan-2. 

Chandrayaan-3 is composed of three units: the lander, orbiter and propulsion. Several changes were made to the lander of the vehicle after its predecessor’s failure at landing. Some of the changes include strengthening the legs of the lander, increasing its tolerance to velocity, the addition of sensors to monitor the velocity and more. ISRO claims to be fairly confident about the success of Chandrayaan-3’s soft landing on the Moon.