Credit: X/@isro
India’s third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 successfully entered the orbit of the moon on Saturday after traversing for over 300,000 km in three weeks in deep space following a precise course meticulously charted by the Indian Space Research Organisation.
Over the next 18 days, the velocity of the probe will be reduced slowly while bringing it down to a lower orbit of around 100 km before attempting the much-awaited soft landing near the lunar south pole at 5.47 pm on August 23.
In an update, ISRO said the Rs 600 crore spacecraft entered lunar orbit on Saturday by retro-burning at the Perilune for 1,835 seconds starting at 7.12 pm.
“The manoeuvre resulted in an orbit of 164 km x 18074 kms intended,” the ISRO said, adding that this is the third time in succession that the space agency has successfully inserted its spacecraft into the lunar orbit, apart from doing so once into the Martian orbit.
The previous two occasions were during Chandrayaan-I and Chandrayaan-II.
“MOX, ISTRAC, this is Chandrayaan-3. I am feeling lunar gravity,” it said in a message posted on the social media platform X formerly known as Twitter.
“Chandrayaan-3 has been successfully inserted into lunar orbit. A retro-burning at the perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex, ISTRAC,” it added.
After some manoeuvres, the propulsion module will separate from the lander while in orbit. Following that, a series of complex braking manoeuvres will be executed to facilitate a soft landing in the South Polar region of the moon on August 23, the ISRO added.
The space agency said all the systems of Chandrayaan-3 were healthy and the next lunar bound orbit manoeuvre was scheduled for Sunday night.
“The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the MOX at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru,” the agency said.
After the lander carrying the rover gets separated from Chandrayaan-3, the remaining part of the space probe will circle the satellite beaming data from a unique payload, which will hold the key to identify Earth-like exo-planets in future.
Named SHAPE or Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth, the payload will stare at the earth to find out the tell-tale signs of how the atmosphere of the Earth looks from space. “The signature can be used to find similar earth-like exo-planets,” astrophysicist Somak Raychaudhury, Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University told DH.
Designed by scientists at the Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad and UR Rao Satellite Centre, the payload will aid in future discoveries of smaller planets and allow scientists to probe into the variety of exo-planets that would qualify for the presence of life.
While more than 7,000 exo-planets are known at the moment, there are many planned space missions to search for more such planets with a focus on the habitable one. The ISRO also plans for one such mission in collaboration with the UK.
“The spectrograph data and high-resolution images from SHAPE will help next-generation exo-planet missions understand the atmosphere of such planets and find out if there are signatures of habitable planets,” said Raychaudhury.
The payload is a part of the propulsion module that will remain in orbit after the separation of the lander.
The ISRO had in the past 22 days carried out five orbit raising manoeuvres before slingshot the spacecraft into the translunar orbit on August 1.