Ex-ISRO chief: Milestone for planetary exploration

August 23, 2023 12:05

Ahead of the much-awaited soft landing of the country's third moon mission -- Chandrayaan-3, former ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair spoke to ANI and delved into how this mission is significant for overall spacefaring for India and also about the last-minute manoeuvres.

"The last leg of its operation and everybody is anxiously looking forward to this great event. As far as the Indian space program is concerned, this is going to be the most significant milestone for planetary exploration. Of course, in the past, we have made an attempt to land on the lunar surface, but unfortunately, it did not succeed at the time. Since then, ISRO has done considerable studies and simulations and strengthened the designs and provided redundancies so that the mission success probability can be improved," he said.

The scheduled timing for the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's south pole on August 23, 2023 (Wednesday), is around 18:04 IST, with the powered descent of Vikram lander expected at 1745 IST. With all set for a soft landing, he said the last 20 minutes where the powered descending from the lunar orbit to the lunar surface will take place, is going to be the most challenging moment in the history of this mission.

"As far as this soft landing is concerned, not many people have succeeded. It is only USA, Russia and China have succeeded so far to land on the south pole of the Moon. Of course, recently, the Luna spacecraft of Russia also crashed and landed on the lunar surface. Considering all this background, we have to really make sure everything is normal and perfect before the landing operation takes place," he said.

"The landing operation involves first reducing the velocity of the spacecraft from 1.6 kilometre per second to a few hundred meters per second and then making it over at a low altitude, taking pictures of the lunar surface and identifying the spot where it can safely land.

"There are rocks and there are craters and valleys in the region. So one has to really choose the spot on which the landing can take place safely. And this operation will be done in the last minute or so."

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