What went wrong with the last Chandrayaan Mission, and how the third mission will be different?
Chandrayaan-3
is scheduled for launch on July 14, 2023, at 2:45 pm IST, about four years
after Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22, 2019.
So what went wrong with the Chandrayaan-2
mission?
The Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft included three different parts: an orbiter,
a lander, and a rover. Despite the Vikram lander failing to land as smoothly as
had been hoped, the rest of the mission was a success.
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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) intended to land
Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram spacecraft on a smooth plain on the lunar surface
approximately 600 kilometres from the South Pole on September 7, 2019, but lost
contact with the lander shortly before the scheduled landing. Due to a software
error, this aspect of the Chandrayaan-2 mission was unsuccessful.
ISRO reported that the Vikram spacecraft performed normally up to an
altitude of 2.1 kilometres. After that, communication was lost between the spacecraft
and the mission control station on Earth.
How Chandrayaan-3 is
different from Chandrayaan-2?
Chandrayaan-3 is
different from Chandrayaan-2 because it won’t have an orbiter, and it will also
carry a payload that Chandrayaan-2 didn’t: the Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable
Planet Earth (SHAPE) instrument. The Chandrayaan-3 propulsion section has
SHAPE, which means the Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) instrument.
From lunar orbit, this
instrument will study the spectral and polarimetric readings of Earth. This means
that this special instrument will examine the spectro-polarimetric signals of
Earth.
According to the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Observatory,
spectro-polarimetry is a method for polarising light that involves splitting
incoming light into its individual colours and then examining the polarisation
of each colour separately.
Understanding the
spectro-polarimetric signatures of Earth can help scientists examine the light
reflected from exoplanets and decide if they could support life.
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