Chandrayaan-3 launch likely on July 13: Officials
On June 4, Isro chairman, S Somanath spoke to HT and confirmed that the launch window for the mission was finalised between July 12 and July 19
The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will likely launch the third edition of its lunar mission, the Chandrayaan-3, on July 13 at 2.30pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, senior officials familiar with the development said on Wednesday.
“The launch window that we had was between July 12 and July 19. There were a few last-minute changes in the time slots, but the decision to launch on July 13 at 2.30pm is almost final,” a senior official from the department of space said on Wednesday.
HT had first reported on May 22 that India’s much-awaited Chandryaan-3 mission is scheduled to launch around July 12. On June 4, Isro chairman, S Somanath spoke to HT and confirmed that the launch window for the mission was finalised between July 12 and July 19.
When HT reached out to Somanath to officially confirm the launch date, he refused to comment.
The Chandrayaan programme, also known as the Indian lunar exploration programme, is an ongoing series of outer space mission by Isro. Under it, India’s first moon rocket, the Chandrayaan-1, was launched in 2008, and was successfully inserted into lunar orbit.
Chandrayaan-2 was successfully launched and inserted into lunar orbit in 2019, but its lander “crash-landed” on the moon’s surface when it deviated from its trajectory while attempting to land on September 6, 2019, due to a software glitch.
Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous lander module, a propulsion module and a rover. Its objectives include developing and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions. The lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the rover, which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. The lander and the rover will have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-3 will be launched over Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM-3), which was previously known as Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk-III (GSLV Mk-III) rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration till 100km lunar orbit.
In May, the space agency started the assembly process for the payloads for Chandrayaan-3, a move to ensure that the space agency is able to stick to the launch date of July, senior officials from the department of space said. After that, the assembly was completed at Isro’s UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in Bangalore, before it was sent to the Sriharikota space port for the launch. Last week, the agency started the process of encapsulation in the payload fairing.
