2023-07-10 21:14:55
India heads to the moon once more. This time, the Chandrayaan 3 mission will land a lander and a rover on the lunar surface. The last mission had failed. Will the moon landing succeed this time?
On July 13, 2023, India wants to send another spacecraft to the moon and is expected to land on the moon on August 24, 2023. It will be the second landing attempt following the failed second Chandrayaan mission in 2019.
Chandrayaan-3: India’s Flight to the Moon
“We know how to fly to the moon. We just have to learn how to land. And that has to be error-free to the best of our knowledge and belief,” Sreedhara Panicker Somanath told news channel NewsX a year ago. Somanath is the chairman of the Indian space agency “Isro”.
The launch of an Indian LVM3 launch vehicle. The Chandrayaan-3 mission will also be launched with such a rocket. Image copyright: ISRO
The mission is scheduled to launch from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Center. This is located on the southern Indian island of Sriharikota. A rocket of the type LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark 3, formerly GSLV Mk III) is to bring the spacecraft into space. The spacecraft is scheduled to reach the moon on August 23 or 24, 2023.
Like the previous mission, this time a landing area close to the poles is to be headed for. The landing site is located on the near side of the moon between the two craters Manzinus C and Simpelius N. These can be found east of the lunar south pole.
Indian lunar lander to remain in action for 14 days
The mission duration is expected to last one lunar day – 14 Earth days – because the lander’s equipment is not designed for the lunar night, when temperatures drop to -160 degrees Celsius.
The propulsion module with the Vikram lander of the Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan-3. Image copyright: ISRO
Compared to the previous mission’s Vikram lander, this lander has been given some improvements. The vehicle now has several redundant instruments for measuring the distance to the ground. In addition, the vehicle can better avoid obstacles in its final descent phase. In addition to the improved software, the probe’s landing legs have also been strengthened.
The tasks of the Chandrayaan-3 missions
Also on board is the small, six-wheeled rover “Pragyan”, weighing 26 kilograms. Its instruments will study the chemical composition of the regolith (lunar sand and rock) near the landing site, as well as analyze the levels of potassium, aluminum, magnesium, silicon, calcium, titanium and iron.
The landing module will also measure moonquakes with a seismograph and the plasma density near the ground and its change over the course of the day using a Langmuir probe. In addition, the thermal conductivity and temperature of the regolith can be determined with the Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE).
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In addition, the Isro wants to test a new instrument with its propulsion module (the vehicle that takes the lander and rover to the moon). With Shape (Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth) the authority wants to find out more regarding the atmospheric composition of exoplanets in the future. This mission is designed to test Shape using Earth as a test object. The instrument will observe our planet from lunar orbit. Unlike previous missions, Chandrayaan 3 will not feature a new orbiter.
Will India become the fourth country on the moon?
If India succeeds in this moon landing, it would be the fourth country to have successfully landed on the surface of our satellite. On February 3, 1966, the then Soviet Union was the first country to successfully land on the moon with its Luna 9 mission. On June 2 of the same year, the United States landed its Sirveyor-1 mission safely and gently on the lunar surface.
First image of the far side of the moon from 1959. : Luna 3-1 / Russian Space Agency
Space nation IndiaIn 1975, India sent the Aryabhata satellite into space, back then with the help of a Soviet rocket. The country launched its first PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) launcher for light to medium-heavy cargo in 1994. A launcher for heavy loads followed in 2004 with the GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle). With the Gaganyaan mission in 2025, the first astronauts are to be brought into space with their own spacecraft. India would be only the fourth country following Russia, the US and China to achieve this level of space travel. With the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), India was also represented with a space probe in Mars orbit until the end of 2022. However, during the first moon landing in 2019, the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-2 mission failed. The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter remains active in orbit around the moon and is expected to remain operational until 2027.
After NASA’s last Apollo missions in the 1970s, things remained quiet around the moon for a long time. It was not until 2013 that the Chinese Chang’e-3 mission landed safely. The first commercial moon landing failed in March 2023 with the Japanese mission Hakuto-R. But other private companies want to land on the moon’s surface in the next few years, such as Astrobotic or Intuitive Machines. But both American companies had to postpone their moon plans once more and once more. Neither of them will go to the moon before the end of 2023.
From 2025, NASA, together with SpaceX, might then bring people back to the moon. So the Trabant will remain the target of space travel for the next few years.
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