Chandrayaan-3 to be launched on 1 July ‘I am confident’: ISRO Chairman Somanath

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somnath said on Monday that Chandrayaan-3, the third iteration of India’s lunar mission, will be launched this July.

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-up mission to Chandrayaan-2 in order to demonstrate end-to-end capability for safe landing and wandering on the lunar surface. Somnath said, “I am very confident…” today on the lunar mission.

As per the ISRO chairman, the NVS-01, the first of the second-generation satellite series, was successfully launched into geosynchronous transfer orbit by the space agency. The NVS-01 navigation satellite was launched by the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre’s second launch pad in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

Somanath further added, “The lesson is very simple. Learn from the past and do what is possible with your capacity. Failures may happen. There are a thousand reasons for a rocket to fail. Even today, this mission could have failed. But we have to do what is needed to be done”.

Meanwhile, the Chandraayan-3 mission consists of an indigenous lander module, a propulsion module, and a rover, with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions.

According to ISRO, the three mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate roving on the moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.

It will be launched by the LVM3 rocket from the SDSC SHAR centre in Sriharikota. The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration to a 100 km lunar orbit, according to ISRO.