Chandrayaan-3: India’s mission to moon; hopes to land rover on lunar surface

Image: Twitter/ISRO

India hopes to become the fourth country ever to successfully land a rover on the moon with its Chandrayaan-3 mission, which blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh at 2:30 p.m. local time.

LVM3 M4/Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
LVM3 M4 vehicle? successfully launched Chandrayaan-3?️ into orbit.

— ISRO (@isro) July 14, 2023

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 and aims to demonstrate the country’s capability in safely landing and roving the lunar surface.

As per the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous Lander module, Propulsion module and a Rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions.

14th July 2023 will always be etched in golden letters as far as India’s space sector is concerned. Chandrayaan-3, our third lunar mission, will embark on its journey. This remarkable mission will carry the hopes and dreams of our nation. pic.twitter.com/EYTcDphaES

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 14, 2023

Chandrayaan-3 mission objectives:

1. To demonstrate a safe and soft landing on lunar surface
2. To demonstrate Rover exploring the moon and
3. To conduct in-situ scientific experiments

This is India’s second attempt at landing a rover on the moon’s surface as its previous effort with the Chandrayaan-2 failed in 2019. ISRO’s first lunar probe, the Chandrayaan-1, orbited the moon and was then deliberately crash-landed onto the lunar surface in 2008.

The other countries which hold the distinction of successfully carrying out a soft-landing on the moon’s surface are the United States, Russia, and China.

India has set up one of the most prolific space programmes and has successfully launched domestic and foreign satellites, as well as placed a rover in Mars’ orbit.