Chandrayaan-3, ISRO's Third Lunar Mission, To Be Launched On July 14: ISRO

The Chandrayaan-3 Spacecraft will be launched on July 14, 2023 at 2:35 pm from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on Thursday.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The spacecraft is fully integrated and has a lander and rover configuration - which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility, according to ISRO. 

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft will be launched by LVM3 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration till 100 km lunar orbit.  The spacecraft was integrated with the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk-III) on July 5. 

All we know about Chandrayaan 3

According to ISRO, the three mission objectives of the Chandrayaan-3 are- to demonstrate safe and soft landing on the lunar surface; to demonstrate Rover roving on the moon and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments. 

The spacecraft consists of an indigenous Lander module (LM), Propulsion module (PM) and a Rover with an objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for Inter planetary missions, according to ISRO. 

The Lander payloads has Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature; 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. A passive Laser Retroreflector Array from NASA is accommodated for lunar laser ranging studies.

In 2019, India's maiden attempt to land a rover on Moon was unsuccessful aboard the Chandrayaan-2 mission after it crashed on the lunar surface. 

(This is a developing story. More details are awaited.)