Chandrayaan-3: ISRO’s ambitious Chandrayaan-3 mission has been on a journey to the Moon since its launch on July 14. The expected touch down on the surface of the Moon’s south pole is expected at around 6.04 pm today i.e. on 23 August. Chandrayaan-3 is aimed at the lunar south pole, a region with water ice, or frozen water, that could be a source of oxygen, fuel and water for future moon missions or a more permanent moon colony.
After its successful landing, Chandrayaan-3 is expected to remain functional for two weeks, running a series of experiments including a spectrometer analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface.
Wishes and prayers have been pouring in from across the world ahead of the today’s attempted moon landing. Meanwhile, did you know it was India’s former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had given the name Chandrayaan instead of the earlier Somayaan.
In 1999, the lunar mission was given approval from the government when Vajpayee was the prime minister. The late prime minister had urged scientists to proceed with their plan to study the moon. Moreover, he also changed the mission’s name from “Somayaan” to “Chandrayaan.”
That time his decision to rename Somayaan had come as a surprise to space scientists as they had picked ‘Somayaan’ from a Sanskrit verse which was quoted in Rigveda: “O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect. You enlighten us through the right path.”
“Vajpayee said the mission should be called Chandrayaan, and not Somayaan, as the country has emerged as an economic power, and will make many exploratory journeys to the Moon,” Dr K. Kasturirangan, the former chairperson of the ISRO said as reported by Deccan Chronicle in 2019.
Kasturirangan had also told the daily, “It took four years to plan the mission, and another four years to implement it.”
In November 2003, government had approved ISRO’s proposal for the inaugural India’s moon mission. During India’s 56th Independece Day in 2003, Vajpayee had said, “Our country is now ready to fly high in the field of science. I am pleased to announce that India will send her spacecraft to the moon by 2008. It is being named Chandrayaan.”
Chandrayaan, which means “moon craft” in Sanskrit, has been built on a budget of just under ₹615 crore. The approved cost of Chandrayaan-3 is ₹250 crores (excluding launch vehicle cost).
Meanwhile, Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years failed over the weekend when its Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon. Prior a private Japanese space startup, ispace failed an attempted lunar landing in April.
Meanwhile, The live telecast of the landing operations at Mission Operation Complex (MOX) will begin at 1720 IST. Live broadcast of the landing will be available on the ISRO website, its YouTube channel, Facebook, and public broadcaster DD National TV from 17:27 IST on Aug 23, 2023.
A post on ISRO’s official handle on X, formerly Twitter, read, “All set to initiate the Automatic Landing Sequence (ALS). Awaiting the arrival of the Lander Module (LM) at the designated point, around 17:44 Hrs. IST. Upon receiving the ALS command, the LM activates the throttleable engines for powered descent. “The mission operations team will keep confirming the sequential execution of commands. The live telecast of operations at MOX begins at 17:20 Hrs. IST.”
Chandrayaan-3’s development phase commenced in January 2020, with the launch planned sometime in 2021, however, due to Covid-19 pandemic, it saw an unforeseen delay to the mission’s progress.
Chandrayaan-2 mission was only “partially successful” since the lander lost contact after a hard landing, but the ISRO earlier this week successfully established two-way communication between the Chandrayaan-3 lander module and the still orbiting Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Updated: 23 Aug 2023, 02:41 PM IST
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