Chennai, July 25 (Agency) The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday propelled its third Moon Mission Chandrayaan-3–to explore the hitherto unexplored Lunar south pole region–a step closer to the moon by raising its orbit for the fifth time. The ISRO today successfully performed the fifth Orbit raising maneuver. The spacecraft is expected to attain an orbit of 127609 km x 236 km and it would be confirmed after observations. The next firing, the TransLUnar INjection (TLI) is planned for August one between 12 midnight and 1 a.m. In a tweet on Chandrayaan-3 Mission update, ISRO said “The orbit-raising maneuver (Earth-bound perigee firing) is performed successfully from ISTRAC/ISRO, Bengaluru.” “The spacecraft is expected to attain an orbit of 127609 km x 236 km. The achieved orbit will be confirmed after the observations”, it said. “The next firing, the TransLunar Injection (TLI), is planned for August 1, 2023, between 12 midnight and 1 am IST”, ISRO said.
After the first orbit raising manoeuvre (Earthbound firing-1), was performed by the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru, the second orbit-raising maneuver (Earth-bound apogee firing) was performed successfully on July 17, the third maneuver (Earth-bound perigee firing) the next day and the fourth on July 20. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was successfully launched by ISRO’s heaviest launch vehicle LVM3-M4 from the spaceport of Sriharikota on July 14. After a flight duration of about 16 minutes, it was precisely placed in an elliptic parking orbit of 36,500 km x 170 km. ISRO is planning the technically challenging soft landing of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft in the lunar surface at 5.47 p.m. on August 23, ISRO Chairman S.Somanath had said after the launch at Sriharikota.
The Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous lander module (LM), Propulsion Module (PM), and a rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for future inter-planetary missions. The success of Chandrayaan-3 will make it the surface mission closest to the lunar south pole to date, a region of the moon that has been found to be geologically unique and host to spots in permanent shadow. A perfect soft landing on the Moon’s surface will make India the fourth country to accomplish this feat, thereby joining a select group of spacefaring nations. Only USA, the then Soviet Union and China have achieved this feat. India too nearly achieved in its maiden attempt when it launched Chandrayaan-2 in July 2019, before the lander crash landed very close to the landing spot, making the mission about 99.99 per cent success. Through Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO is crossing new frontiers by demonstrating soft landing on lunar surface by its lunar module and demonstrate roving on the lunar terrain. It is expected to be supportive to ISRO’s future interplanetary missions. ISRO said Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.