Chandrayaan-3 mission: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that it has successfully carried out the orbit reduction manoeuvre of India's third moon mission, Chandrayaan-3, on Sunday. The development came a day after inserting it into the lunar orbit. As per the national space agency, the next such operation will be carried out on August 9. In addition to this, ISRO released the first visuals of the Moon that was captured by Chandrayaan-3. The video showed the Moon in bluish-green colour with many craters.
Next operation on...
"The spacecraft successfully underwent a planned orbit reduction manoeuvre. The retrofiring of engines brought it closer to the moon's surface, now to 170 km x 4,313 km. "The next operation to further reduce the orbit is scheduled for August 9, 2023, between 1300 and 1400 hrs IST," ISRO tweeted on Sunday.
Three more moon-bound manoeuvres to take place
According to the space agency, there will be three more moon-bound manoeuvres till August 17. After this, the landing module, which comprises the lander and the rover, will break away from the propulsion module. Then, de-orbiting manoeuvres will be carried out on the lander before the final descent on the moon.
Landing
ISRO earlier had announced that Chandrayaan-3 will attempt a soft landing on the moon's surface on August 23.
Chandrayaan-3 comprises an indigenous propulsion module, a lander module and a rover to develop and demonstrate new technologies required for inter-planetary missions. It is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2. According to the space agency, the propulsion module will help to carry the lander and configuration till 100 km of lunar orbit.
This module has a Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and polarimetric measurements of the earth from the lunar orbit.
Health of spacecraft
The space agency earlier said that the health of India's third lunar mission is normal and a soft landing on the lunar surface would be attempted on August 23.
If Chandrayaan-3 succeeds in landing a robotic lunar rover in ISRO's second attempt in four years, India will become the fourth country to master the technology of soft-landing on the moon's surface after the US, China and the former Soviet Union.
(with inputs from PTI)
