Chandrayaan-3 Nears Lunar Destination, Lander Scheduled for Disengagement Today

The spacecraft, which consists of a Propulsion Module and the lander component, which includes the rover, conducted its final orbit-reducing maneuver on Wednesday.

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According to the ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 drew closer to the Moon on Wednesday, putting itself into a near-circular 153–163 kilometer orbit and preparing for the Lander Module's separation on Thursday.

The Lander will finish the remainder of the mission to the Moon's surface on its own after it separates from the Propulsion Module.

The Lander will perform two orbit-reduction maneuvers after turning on and testing all of its on-board components, including the three scientific payloads: first, to enter a circular orbit of 100100 km, and subsequently, to get closer to the Moon in a 10030 km orbit.

On August 23, the Lander will start its final descent for landing on the Moon from this 10030-kilometer orbit.

The Chandrayaan-2 had an issue during this latter part of the descent, only a few seconds before touchdown, which caused it to crash land.

The Propulsion Module and the Lander Module are getting ready for their individual journeys, the ISRO stated in a statement.Chandrayaan-3, which was launched on July 14th, orbited the moon on August 5th.

S. Somanath, the ISRO chairman, stated that the space agency used a "failure-based approach" when building the Lander in order to incorporate the lessons learned from Chandrayaan-2.

We have looked at everything that could go wrong and how we can prevent it, he had already said.

The lander and rover were transported into lunar orbit by Chandrayaan-2's propulsion module, which also served as the orbiter. There was no need for an Orbiter component in Chandrayaan-3 because everything had operated correctly and the equipment on board had completed all the targeted observations and experiments.

The Propulsion Module had only this small mission to do, which was to get the Lander Module into lunar orbit.

The Propulsion Module, which has one instrument, will still continue to gather data for a few months even though its current task will be completed once the Lander separates.

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