The Chandrayaan-3 lander, which is a few days away from landing on the Moon’s surface, established contact with the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter this afternoon. The space agency said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“‘Hello friend!’ Ch-2 orbiter officially welcomes Ch-3 LM [landing module]. Two-way communication between two people is established. MOX [Mission control] there are now more routes to reach LM,” Isro said in a post. The orbiter has been orbiting the Moon since 2019 when Isro attempted to land on the lunar surface for the first time with the Chandrayaan mission. -2.
The mission ended in partial failure. The orbiter was not only successfully placed around the Moon, but its mission duration was extended to seven years due to a number of precise orbit and launch maneuvers. However, the lander-rover combination of the mission persisted while attempting a soft landing near the South Pole of our satellite.
Four years later, Isro is making another attempt with Chandrayaan-3 whose lander – named Vikram (Chandrayaan-2’s lander is also named similarly) – will attempt to land on the surface of the Moon. on Wednesday, August 23.
The lander, along with the Pragyaan rover housed within it, is expected to touch down on the Moon’s surface around 6:04 p.m. Wednesday. Live broadcast of the landing event will begin at 5:20 p.m. Wednesday.
Earlier on Monday, Isro also released photos of the Moon’s surface taken by Vikram’s Landing Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC). The camera is supposed to help Vikram locate a safe landing, the space agency said in a statement.
FINGER Slash
Chandrayaan-3, launched on July 14, is Chandrayaan-2’s follow-up mission to demonstrate its end-to-end ability to safely land and navigate the lunar surface. The operating time of the lander and explorer is one lunar day or 14 earth days.
Referring to the planned encounter, former Isro G president Madhavan Nair crossed his arms saying that this is a very complicated maneuver and one must be cautious as all systems must work in sync. to succeed.
Nair, who was head of the space agency when the Chandrayaan-1 mission launched in 2008, said a successful landing would herald an important start to Isro’s next phase of planetary exploration.
“It was a very complicated maneuver. We almost missed it (soft landing on the Moon during the Chandrayaan-2 mission) for the last two kilometers (on the surface of the Moon),” he told the news agency. PTI on Monday. “So there’s a lot of things that have to work in sync… the thrusters, the sensors, the altimeter, the computer software and all that. Any glitches happen anywhere. .. we can all get in trouble,” Nair said.
“We have to be really cautious and watchful. Of course, I understand that ISRO has done enough simulations and also has built-in redundancy, so the possibility of such a failure is very low. However, We still have to be careful.”
“The data we can collect from the (moon) surface will be helpful in identifying some minerals…rare minerals, if any, helium-3, etc. try to do some investigation into what kind of setup we might have near the lunar South Pole for exploration or human presence.It (successful soft landing) would be an important start important for ISRO’s next phase of planetary exploration”.
RUSSIA SOLAR MISSION FAILURE
Nair and another former Isro president, K Sivan, said the failure of Russia’s Luna-25 lunar mission would not affect Chandrayaan-3. Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the Moon after it entered an uncontrolled orbit, the country’s space agency Roscosmos said on August 20.
“It didn’t have any impact,” Sivan, who was head of Isro when the Chandrayaan-2 mission launched in 2019, told PTI when asked if Isro was under additional pressure ahead of the soft landing after the failure. Russia’s defeat or not.
“It (Chandrayaan-3 mission) is going according to plan. It (soft landing) will be done accordingly,” he said. “We hope that this time (unlike Chandrayaan-2), it will be successful.”
Nair dismissed suggestions in some comments that India and Russia were engaged in a race to the Moon and considered the Luna-25 landing a pity.
“I know the (landing) module. It’s been ready since 2008. When I visited the lab (in Russia), they showed me the module. They didn’t have the resources to fly ( then), so it’s been in cold storage for a long time. Now they have the resources (to launch),” he told PTI.
Excluding any impact on the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which kicked off on July 14, Nair said the Indian joint venture is completely independent and “we are not dependent on them (Russia)”. Currently, India’s space cooperation with Russia is limited to training Indian astronauts for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission.
“So if it (Luna-25) lands, our data and their (Russia) data (collected based on experiments on the lunar surface) will complement each other,” he said. speak.
Publish to:
August 21, 2023
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