Even as he described Chandrayaan-3 as the ‘most significant milestone’ for India’s space projects, G Madhavan Nair, the former chairman of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) on Wednesday noted that the final 20 minutes of the Moon mission’s descent from the lunar orbit to lunar surface will be the ‘most challenging.’
“Everybody is anxiously looking forward to this great event. As far as the Indian space programme is concerned, it is going to be the most significant milestone for planetary exploration,” Nair said, speaking to news agency ANI.
The senior space scientist, who headed the national space agency from Sep 2003 to Oct 2009 as its sixth chairman, then cautioned: “The last 20 minutes of descending from the lunar orbit to the lunar surface are going to be the most challenging moment in the history of this mission.”
At 5:45pm on Tuesday, the lander module of Chandrayaan-3 will begin its final descent towards the South Pole of Moon. The module, comprising of the lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) is scheduled to make soft-landing at 6:04pm.
‘The 20 minutes of terror’
These will begin at 5:45pm, with ‘Vikram’ firing its engines and preparing for the soft-landing. According to experts, these 20 minutes will be all about the spacecraft touching down at the designated site.
Before India, only three countries have soft-landed on Moon: the United States, Russia and China. Also, with the recent crash of Russia’s Luna 25 mission, India has the opportunity to be the first to land at the Moon’s South Pole, the lander module’s intended destination.
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