The scientific community is eagerly awaiting the successful launch of India’s third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 on Friday. Here is a timeline of how the lunar mission evolved over the years. The Chandrayaan program was conceived by the Government of India and was formally announced on 15 August 2003 by the then Prime Minister, the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Thereafter, the hard work of the scientists paid off when the first mission Chandrayaan-1 was launched on October 22, 2008 by ISRO’s reliable PSLV-C11 rocket.
orbiting at an altitude of 100 km from the lunar surface
According to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), PSLV-C11 was an updated version of the standard configuration of PSLV. The vehicle, which weighed 320 tonnes at launch, used larger strap-on motors to achieve higher equipment carrying capacity. It had 11 scientific instruments made in India, America, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria. Mayilasamy Annadurai, a renowned scientist belonging to Tamil Nadu, led the project as the Chandrayaan-1 mission director. The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at an altitude of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geological mapping of the Moon.
made more than 3,400 rounds around the moon
The satellite made more than 3,400 revolutions around the Moon, which was more than the ISRO team had expected. The mission eventually ended and scientists at the space agency announced that communication with the spacecraft had been lost on August 29, 2009. PSLV-C11 was designed and developed by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. Encouraged by this success, ISRO envisioned Chandrayaan-2 as a complex mission. It carried an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) to explore the south pole of the Moon.
How did Vikram get his name?
The Chandrayaan-2 mission was successfully placed in the lunar orbit on August 20 of the same year after flying on July 22, 2019. Every move of the spacecraft was precise and the lander successfully separated from the orbiter in preparation for landing on the lunar surface. After orbiting the Moon at an altitude of 100 km, the descent of the lander towards the lunar surface was as planned and was normal up to an altitude of 2.1 km. However, the mission ended abruptly when the scientists lost contact with Vikram. Vikram was named after the late Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme.
A new understanding of the origin and development of the Moon can be born
The Chandrayaan-2 mission failed to make the desired soft landing on the lunar surface, much to the dismay of the ISRO team. At that time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was present at the ISRO headquarters to see the scientific achievement, was greeted by the then ISRO chief K.K. Sivan who became emotional was seen consoling and those pictures are still fresh in people’s memories. The objective of the Chandrayaan-2 mission was to expand lunar scientific knowledge through detailed studies of topography, seismographs, mineralogical identification, chemical composition of the surface and thermo-physical characteristics of the upper soil, leading to a new understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon. May be
Aims to master soft landing on Moon’s surface
The third mission to take off on Friday is a follow-up mission to the predecessor Chandrayaan-2 which aims to master the soft landing on the lunar surface. With a successful soft landing on the lunar surface, India will join the club of countries like the US, China and the former Soviet Union who have achieved such a feat.
