Chandrayaan 3 Moon Landing: Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander & Pragyan seperation, de-boost operations to follow | India News – Times of India
“Landing module is successfully separated from the propulsion module. Landing module set to descend to a slightly lower orbit upon a de-boosting planned for tomorrow (August 18) at 4pm,” Isro said.
Read Also
With the journey so far having gone exactly as planned, Chandrayaan-3, whose orbit circularisation phase began with the completion of the lunar-bound manoeuvre on August 14, is expected to enter a 100km circular orbit after another operation planned for 8.30am on Wednesday (August 16).
The Isro is implementing measures to manage traffic in lunar orbit as Chandrayaan-3 prepares for its landing. This involves a review of traffic scenarios for the coming years to prevent collisions with other spacecraft. As of last month, there were six other active lunar orbiters, plus the defunct
Isro chief S Somanath said that the separation of Chandrayaan-3’s lander module Vikram went as planned as the agency completed a significant step in India’s lunar mission on Thursday.Following the success of the latest maneuver, the Isro chief said that he is happy with the progression of the
In 16 minutes, the Chandrayaan-3 launch was proclaimed a success. Now we have to wait 40 days to see if India’s third Moon mission will be a success. Isro’s LVM-3 lifted off from Sriharikota at 2.35pm amidst roars and applause from 10,000-odd spectators at the spaceport — and millions who watched
BENGALURU: Chandrayaan-3, which was launched 34 days ago onboard the GSLV-Mk3 or LVM-3, is set for a major milestone — separation of the landing module comprising Vikram (the lander) and Pragyan (the rover) from the propulsion module — later today. On Wednesday, Isro had the spacecraft — an
The separation manoeuvre was carried out by Isro a day after it guided the spacecraft — an integrated module with the propulsion module sitting on top of the landing module — into ‘an orbit of 153km x 163km, as intended’.
In his post-launch remarks on July 14, Isro chairman S Somanath had said the spacecraft’s altitude will be reduced to a 100km circular orbit and the landing module will get separated on August 17, which was a ‘nominal’ estimation.
During Chandrayaan-2, which aimed for a 100km circular orbit with the last lunar-bound manoeuvre, the spacecraft was put into a 119km x 127km orbit. That was only off marginally from the initial plans but as intended going by estimations made closer to the last lunar manoeuvre.
For Chandrayaan-3, a senior scientist had told TOI on July 15, the plan was to achieve a circular orbit, with an altitude of either 100km or 150km. “That will be decided closer to the date of the manoeuvre,” another scientist had said. And the orbit achieved Wednesday, Isro reiterated: “was as intended”.
Now, a series of de-boost manoeuvres will eventually put Vikram in an orbit where the Perilune (closest point to Moon) is 30km and Apolune (farthest point from Moon) is 100km. Again, this is a nominal estimation, and the final orbit achieved could vary marginally as was the case with Chandrayaan-2.
Once the 30km x 100km orbit has been achieved, the most critical part of the landing, the process of reducing the velocity of the lander from 30km height to the final landing, as Isro chairman S Somanath had said earlier, will begin.
Isro will also have to overcome the phase where the spacecraft’s horizontal orientation needs to change to a vertical one, before Vikram makes the final descent on August 23.
03:47
ISRO shares first images of moon captured by Chandrayaan-3
Chandrayaan-3 was launched 34 days ago (July 14). After the initial orbit achieved soon after the launch, Chandrayaan-3 completed five Earth-bound manoeuvres between July 15 and 25, which raised its altitude to more than 1.2-lakh-km at the farthest point from Earth.
Following this, Isro carried out the trans-lunar injection (TLI) on August 1, which put the spacecraft in a path towards Moon at an altitude of nearly 3.6-lakh-km before the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) put it in an elliptical orbit around Moon on August 5. This was followed by five lunar-bound manoeuvres and the separation of the landing module.
