Chandrayaan-3 enters Lunar orbit: What's next for India's historic Moon mission?

August 23 is the tentative date fixed by ISRO when Chandrayaan-3 will, in all likelihood, land on the south pole of the Moon.

Chandrayaan-3, on Saturday, inched closer to its destination on Moon as it entered the Lunar orbit. It also underwent an orbit reduction manoeuvre to lower its orbit. As per ISRO, the health of the spacecraft is said to be normal.

"The spacecraft successfully underwent a planned orbit reduction manoeuvre. The retrofiring of engines brought it closer to the moon's surface, now to 170 km x 4,313 km. The retrofitting of engines brought it closer to the Moon's surface, now to 170 km x 4,313 km. The next operation to further reduce the orbit is scheduled for August 9, between 13:00 and 14:00 hours IST," ISRO shared on X on Sunday.

There will be three more moon-bound manoeuvres till August 17, following which the landing module, comprising the lander and rover, will break away from the propulsion module.

After this, de-orbiting manoeuvres will be carried out on the lander before the final descent on the moon. According to ISRO, it would attempt a soft landing on the moon's surface on August 23.

If things go as planned, Chandrayaan-3 will become the first-ever lunar mission in the world to make a soft-landing on the south pole of the Moon. Till now, all the spacecraft have landed either on the lunar equator or a few degrees latitude south or north of the equator.

As the D-Day approaches, a sequence of planned manoeuvres will be held to position Chandrayaan-3 in a 100-km lunar orbit and align it with its precise landing spot on the lunar poles. Hence, as per ISRO, the next 10 days are crucial for the mission.

Eventually, the propulsion system will dislodge from the lander while still being in the Lunar orbit. Once this process is complete, the Chandrayaan-3 lander will start descending from the orbit and attempt to make a soft-landing.

When is Chandryaan-3 landing?

The spacecraft is expected to land on the south pole of the Moon on August 23, at 5.47 pm.

Why hasn't any Moon misson landed on south pole yet?

The polar region of the Moon is a very difficult terrain. Some areas of it lie in total darkness where even a speck of sunlight has never reached. It is so cold that the temperatures go as low as -230 degree Celsius. The pitch-black darkness and extreme cold makes functioning of electronic instruments excruciatingly challenging.

On top of this, the south pole is crammed with large craters, some even stretching thousands of kilometres.

What's there to explore on the lunar south pole?

As mentioned above, the tough environment here makes it difficult to carry out experiments and explorations. However, as per findings of other Moon missions till now, it's very evident that these regions could flabbergast the entire scientific community with its interesting revelations. Also, India's 2008 Chandrayaan-1 mission revealed the presence of water on Moon's surface.

Besides, extreme cold temperatures in the south pole also indicate towards the fact that anything that's found in this region would have remained frozen and preserved for millions of years. Hence, the soil and rocks from this region of the Moon could provide us the leads to the early solar system

(With PTI inputs)