Latest ISRO Updates:
Chandrayaan-3’s rover Pragyan will emerge from the lander three-and-a-half hours or upto a day since lander Vikram touched down on the lunar surface, depending on the conditions.
This rover will move on Moon’s surface for next 14 days and perform a variety of experiments witht the payloads on the Vikram lander
ILSA ( Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity):This will study quakes on the surface of the moon
ChaSTE (Surface Thermo-Physical Experiment): To study thermos physical behaviour of moon surface.
LASER Retroreflector Array:
This payload is of NASA, where idea is to study real time distance between earth and moon
APXS (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer: To study Moons soil LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope)
Soil study RAMBHA (Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere): To study the near surface plasma activities on the moon.
LP (Langmuir probe): To study plasma activities
SHAPE (Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth): To study the spectro-polarimetric signatures of the earth.
Vikram would have kicked up a large cloud of lunar dust when it landed. The dust will not settle down anytime soon due to the weaker gravitational force on the moon. So the rover will wait just over three hours for the dust to scatter away on its own momentum.
As ISRO would want to avoid the fine lunar dust coating the cameras and other sensitive instruments, so it decided to wait for over three hours to ensure the dust moves away.
The rover Pragyan will first extend its solar arrays and roll out with a wire connected to Vikram. The wire will be snapped once the rover is stable on the lunar surface.
Pragyan will then start its scientific missions.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
— ISRO (@isro) August 23, 2023
'India🇮🇳,
I reached my destination
and you too!'
: Chandrayaan-3
Chandrayaan-3 has successfully
soft-landed on the moon 🌖!.
Congratulations, India🇮🇳!#Chandrayaan_3#Ch3
Powered Descent:
After a minor course correction, Chandrayaan-3 has successfully soft-landed on the moon, Congratulations ISRO and India!
Vertical descent phase 2 hovering goes normally. Re-targeting is on at 50 m from the surface
Vertical descent phase 1 goes normally. Lander now at 300 m from the lunar surface.
Lander is at 1 km from the lunar surface in the final vertical descent phase.
Lander enters into fine breaking phase, with the sensors performing normally, the phase extends for 3 minutes, and the lander will be 800 m from the lunar surface and the horizontal velocity will be brought to zero.
The lander is now 7 km from the moon’s surface, with a horizontal velocity of 300m/s.
After the rough breaking phase, the lander enters into the attitude holding phase.
In the current phase, the current altitude is at 14 km, at a horizontal velocity of 557 m/s and a vertical velocity of about 71 m/s.
In the current phase, the current altitude is at 20 km, at a horizontal velocity of 1100 m/s and a vertical velocity of about 30 m/s.
The Vikram Lander begins its powered descent nearly 228 km into the 745 km rough breaking phase. The velocity of the lander module will be reduced from 1680 m/s to 358 m/s.
After a 40-day journey starting from the Sathish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission is now preparing to land. If all goes well, the Vikram lander should make a soft lunar landing at 6.04 PM IST on August 23. You can watch a live stream of the landing below.
Ahead of the launch, ISRO said it is ready to initiate the mission’s automatic landing sequence. The space agency plans to do it at 5.44 PM IST. From this point onwards, the Vikram lander will use its onboard computers and logic to try to make a soft landing on the Moon.
‘All set to initiate the Automatic Landing Sequence (ALS). Awaiting the arrival of 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.’ ISRO updates on its official X account.
ISRO’s Vikram Lander Module will land around 6:04 pm on moon today. Later, it will release the Pragyan rover.
The real test of the mission will begin at the last leg of the landing. Prior to 20 minutes before landing, ISRO will initiate Automatic Landing Sequence (ALS). It will enable Vikram LM to take charge and use its on-board computers and logic to identify a favourable spot and make a soft-landing on the lunar surface.
Experts say that the final 15 to 20 minutes will be highly crucial for the success of the mission when Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander will make its soft landing. Indians throughout the country and across the world are praying for Chandrayaan-3 Landing today.
…. and
— ISRO (@isro) August 22, 2023
The moon as captured by the
Lander Imager Camera 4
on August 20, 2023.#Chandrayaan_3 #Ch3 pic.twitter.com/yPejjLdOSS
Given the history of India’s second lunar mission, which failed during the last 20 minutes before landing, ISRO is extra-cautious this time in the process. Due to high risk to the spacecraft minutes before moon landing, the duration is dubbed by many as ’20 minutes of terror.’
During this phase, the whole process will become autonomous, where Vikram lander ignitedits own engines at the right times and altitudes.