NEXT SPACEFLIGHT

Status

Success

Chandrayaan-3

Launch Time
Fri Jul 14, 2023 09:05 UTC

First soft lunar landing near the Lunar South Pole. ISRO became the world's fourth space agency to conduct a soft lunar landing after the former USSR, NASA, and CNSA.

Rocket

LVM-3
Image Credit: ISRO
ISRO
Status: Active
Price: $62.0 million
Liftoff Thrust: 11,898 kN
Payload to LEO: 10,000 kg
Payload to GTO: 4,000 kg
Stages: 3
Strap-ons: 2
Rocket Height: 43.4 m
Fairing Diameter: 5.0 m

Mission Details

Chandrayaan-3

Chandrayaan-3 is the third lunar exploration mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

During Chandrayaan-2, a snag in communication led to the failure of a soft lunar landing attempt. Chandrayaan-3 is a mission repeat of Chandrayaan-2.

Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous Lander module (LM), a Propulsion module (PM), and a Rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for Interplanetary missions. The Lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the Rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. The main function of the PM is to carry the LM from launch vehicle injection to the final lunar 100 km circular polar orbit and separate the LM from the PM. Apart from this, the Propulsion Module also has one scientific payload as a value addition which will be operated post-separation of the Lander Module. The launcher will place the integrated module in an Elliptic Parking Orbit (EPO) of size ~170 x 36500 km.

The lander's payloads include Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure thermal conductivity and temperature; the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) for measuring the seismicity around the landing site; Langmuir Probe (LP) to estimate the plasma density and its variations, and finally, a passive Laser Retroreflector Array from NASA accommodated for lunar laser ranging studies.

The rover contains an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) for deriving the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site.

Payloads: 1
Total Mass: 3,900.0 kg
Elliptical

Location

Second Launch Pad, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India

Stats

2023

104th orbital launch attempt

Indian Space Research Organisation

89th mission
5th mission of 2023
74th successful mission
7th consecutive successful mission

LVM-3

7th mission
2nd mission of 2023
7th successful mission