Chandrayaan 3, the latest in India’s moon Missions, is to touch down today. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had announced the time and date of the Chandrayaan 3 mission’s soft landing on Sunday, saying that the landing has been scheduled for August 23 at around 6:04 pm. If the health parameters of the lander module are not found to be “abnormal”, according to an official, the Chandrayaan 3 will have a soft launching today.

A peek so far at the moon craft mission:

The Chandrayan-1 mission was successfully launched in 22 October, 2008, with the payload Moon Impact probe which found water on the surface of the moon. It scoured the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon; studied the atmosphere of the moon. The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft carried 11 scientific instruments built in India, USA, UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.  In 2009, the mission ended when it crashed after losing signals. It lasted for two years.

Chandrayaan-2 was launched in August 2019, a highly complex mission, representing a technological leap in comparison to the earlier missions. Its mission was to explore the unexplored south pole of the moon. It focused on detailed study of topography, seismography, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition, thermo-physical characteristics of top soil and composition of the tenuous lunar atmosphere; in short, the origin and evolution of the Moon.

In September 2019, in the lunar orbit, Vikram lander of the mission was detached for landing on the moon’s surface. Vikram lander’s orbit performance was as planned and normal but later it lost communication to the ground station, ending the mission.

Chandrayaan-3 is on the journey to its destination, the Moon. It follows the other two missions and would demonstrate the end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the Moon’s surface and will consists of a Lander and Rover configuration, Vikram and Pragyan. Its major objectives are, to demonstrate safe and soft landing on lunar surface, rover roving on the Moon’s surface, and to conduct chemical analysis of Moon’s surface. The mission is to understand the surface of the Moon, the exosphere and the sub surface of the Moon.

The south pole of the Moon, is of interest because, is the area which remains in shadow is larger than the north and it could hold water in the permanently shadowed areas around it. Its craters are cold traps which contain fossil records of early solar system. Though the U.S, China and Russia has landed their missions on Moon, the South Pole is still awaiting exploration.

Live telecast of Chandrayaan-3 soft-landing can be watched at ISRO website as it touches down on lunar surface today, after 5.20 pm