Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Spacecraft Mated With Rocket for Launch

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on Wednesday mated the encapsulated array containing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft with the new LVM3 heavy-lift vehicle at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-up mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate the overall capability of a safe landing and lunar roving.

“Today, at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, the envelope cluster containing Chandrayaan-3 was paired with LVM3,” the Bengaluru-based National Space Agency tweeted.

ISRO said the Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to launch between July 13 and July 19. “We aim to launch it on July 13,” an ISRO official said.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission carries scientific instruments to study the thermophysical properties of lunar regolith, moonquakes, the plasma environment on the lunar surface, and elemental composition near the landing site.

While the scope of these science instruments on the lander and rover will fit into the “Science of the Moon” theme, another experimental instrument will study Earth’s spectral-polar signatures from the moon’s orbit, which fits into the theme of “Science from the Moon,” according to ISRO officials.

In March this year, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully completed basic tests that demonstrated its ability to withstand the harsh vibrations and acoustic environment that the spacecraft will encounter during launch.

These tests were particularly difficult, given the fact that the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, to be launched by the LVM3 (Launch Vehicle Mark-III) (formerly GSLV Mk III), is a three-module vehicle – propulsion, landing and rover.

The thrust module, which contains the Spectrophotometry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload for the study of Earth’s spectroscopic and polarimetric measurements from lunar orbit, will carry the probe and rover configuration up to 100 kilometers from lunar orbit.

The landing payloads are: the “Chandra Surface Thermophysical Experiment” to measure thermal conductivity and temperature; the “Lunar Seismic Instrument” to measure seismic activity around the landing site; and the “Langmuir Probe” for estimation of plasma density and its changes.

The passive laser reflectance array is also being accommodated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for laser range studies on the moon.

The rover’s payloads are: “Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer” and “Laser Induced Avalanche Spectrometer” to derive the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site.

The probe will have the ability to soft-land at a specific lunar site and deploy a probe that will perform an in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface as it moves.

The main function of the thrust module is to carry the lander from the launch vehicle injection to a 100 km circular polar orbit and separate it. Apart from this, the propulsion module also has one scientific payload as a value add, which will be put into operation after the descent module is separated, as noted.

(This story was not edited by the News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)