Chandrayaan 3’s landing module has successfully separated from its propulsion module ahead of its planned lunar landing on August 23rd.
India’s latest space mission has completed an important step in the country’s second lunar landing attempt by separating the lunar module from the propulsion part.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) confirmed Thursday that Chandrayaan-3’s landing module, which means ‘moon ship’ in Sanskrit, has “successfully separated” from its propulsion module.
“Thank you for the ride, buddy!” ISRO said in a post on social media platform X.
The announcement came six days before the scheduled landing on August 23. If successful, India will join just three other countries that have successfully landed a rover on the moon.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
“Thanks for the ride, buddy!” 👋
Lander Module (LM) said.LM successfully separated from propulsion module (PM)
LM will descend into a slightly lower orbit during a scheduled deboost around 16:00 tomorrow IST.
Well, 🇮🇳 has 3⃣ 🛰️🛰️🛰️… pic.twitter.com/rJKkPSr6Ct
— Isro (@isro) August 17, 2023
Chandrayaan 3 launched on July 14, 2023 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, an island off the southern coast of Andhra Pradesh.
ISRO said the propulsion module is currently “journeying in its current orbit for months to years” as part of an effort to study exoplanets, planets outside Earth’s solar system.
The instruments on board will “perform spectroscopic studies of the Earth’s atmosphere, measure changes in polarization from clouds above Earth, and accumulate signatures of exoplanets that condition our habitability. ”
The world’s most populous nation has a relatively low-budget aerospace program, but is fast approaching milestones set by the world’s space powers.
Only Russia, the United States and China have so far achieved a controlled landing on the moon.
If the rest of the current mission goes according to plan, the lander will land safely near the largely unexplored south pole of the Moon sometime between August 23 and 24.
India’s last attempt failed four years ago when it lost contact with ground control just before landing.
Developed by ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 includes a lander module named Vikram, Sanskrit for “courage,” and a probe named Pragyang, Sanskrit for “wisdom.”
At $74.6 million, the mission is priced well below other countries’ prices and is a testament to India’s frugal space engineering.
The mission life of the spacecraft is 1 day on the lunar calendar and 14 days on Earth.
ISRO Director S. Somanas said engineers carefully studied the data from the previous failed mission and did their best to fix the glitches.
India’s space program has grown significantly in size and momentum since it sent its first probe into lunar orbit in 2008.