Bengaluru. Chandrayaan-3, India’s third mission to the Moon, was launched on Friday from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The 642-tonne LVM-3 rocket of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) lifted off with Chandrayaan at 2.35 pm. Chandrayaan will take about 40 days to reach the Moon. Just 16 minutes after launch, Chandrayaan-3 will separate from the rocket at an altitude of about 179 km at around 2.50 pm. After this Chandrayaan-3 will start its long moon journey of about 3.84 lakh km.
The lander carried by the spacecraft is expected to soft-land on the Moon on August 23 or 24. ISRO said the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft consists of a propulsion module (weight 2,148 kg), a lander (1,723.89 kg) and a rover (26 kg).
The first stage of the rocket is powered by solid fuel. The second stage is powered by liquid fuel while the third and final stage has cryogenic engines powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The main objective of Chandrayaan-3 is to land the lander safely on the lunar surface. The rover will then head out to perform the experiment. The payload carried by the propulsion module has a life of between three and six months after exiting the lander. ISRO, on the other hand, said that the mission life of the lander and rover is one lunar day or 14 Earth days.
