Chandrayaan-3: ISRO completes launch rehearsal

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) completed the ‘launch rehearsal’ for Chandrayaan-3, which will be launched on July 14 from Sriharikota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

“Chandrayaan-3 mission: The ‘Launch Rehearsal’ simulating the entire launch preparation and process lasting 24 hours has been concluded,” ISRO tweeted.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) connected the encapsulated assembly housing Chandrayaan-3 with the launch vehicle–LVM3–on July 5 at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Bangalore.

“Today, at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, the encapsulated assembly containing Chandrayaan-3 is mated with LVM3,” tweeted ISRO.

The space agency’s chairman, S Somnath, told ANI last month that the launch date for its third lunar mission will be between July 13 and July 19. “We will be able to do a soft landing on the moon. The launch day is July 13, it can go upto 19th,” Somnath had said.

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-up mission to Chandrayaan-2 that will demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe lunar landing and wandering. Earlier this year, the ISRO chairman stated that the Chandrayan-3 mission would most likely launch in June 2023.

The second mission of India to the moon, Chandrayaan-2, was launched on July 22, 2019, from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. However, the mission was aborted when the Vikram lunar lander landed on the Moon in the early hours of September 6.