Next stop, Moon: ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 lander successfully separated from propulsion module

Marking a significant milestone in India's third lunar mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday successfully separated the Vikram lander from the propulsion module of the Chandrayaan-3 mission at around 1:15 pm.

"LM (Lander Module) is successfully separated from the Propulsion Module (PM)," ISRO said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission is currently in an orbit of 153 km x 163 km around the Moon. The next major event will be the selection of the landing site.

After its launch on July 14, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft entered into lunar orbit on August 5, following which orbit reduction manoeuvres were carried out on August 6, 9 and 14. As the mission progressed, a series of manoeuvres were conducted by ISRO to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3's orbit and position it over the lunar poles.

After separation, the lander will undergo a "deboost" (the process of slowing down) to place it in an orbit where the Perilune (closest point to the Moon) is 30 kilometres and Apolune (farthest point from the Moon) is 100 km.

LM is set to descend to a slightly lower orbit upon a deboosting planned for tomorrow around 1600 Hrs, IST, Isro stated. From this orbit, the soft landing on the south polar region of the Moon will be attempted on August 23, ISRO has said.

Meanwhile, the space agency's chairman S Somanath recently said that the most critical part of the landing is the process of bringing down the velocity of the lander when it begins its descent from a height of 30 km to the final landing (position), and that the ability to transfer the spacecraft from horizontal to vertical direction is the "trick we have to play" here.

"The velocity at the starting of the landing process is almost 1.68 km per second, but this speed is horizontal to the surface of the moon. The Chandrayaan-3 here is tilted almost 90 degrees. It has to become vertical. So, this whole process of turning from horizontal to vertical is a very interesting calculation mathematically. We have done a lot of simulations. It is here where we had the problem last time (Chandrayaan-2)," Somanath explained.

The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate the rover operating on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.

Also Watch: Chandrayaan-3 vs Chandrayaan-2: How ISRO enhanced the new Moon mission to withstand catastrophic failures

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