Ahead of the planned landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's untouched south pole on August 23, ISRO said that if any factor regarding the lander module appears unfavourable, then the landing of Chandrayaan-3 will be shifted to August 27.
Ahead of the planned landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's untouched south pole on August 23, a top ISRO scientist said that the decision regarding the landing will be taken based on the health of the lander module and the conditions on the Moon, two hours prior to the scheduled landing.
Ahead of the planned landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's untouched south pole on August 23, ISRO said that if any factor regarding the lander module appears unfavourable, then the landing of Chandrayaan-3 will be shifted to August 27.
Chandrayaan-3's lander module established a two-way communication with Chandrayaan-2's orbiter on Monday and the ISRO said that all systems are working perfectly and no contingencies are anticipated. The two-way contact potentially offers ground controllers more channels for communication with Chandrayaan-3.
Nilesh M Desai, Director of Space Applications Centre-ISRO, Ahmedabad said that the decision regarding the landing will be taken based on the health of the lander module and the conditions on the Moon. "On August 23, two hours before Chandrayaan-3 lands on the Moon, we will take a decision on whether or not it will be appropriate to land it at that time based on the health of the lander module and the conditions on the Moon," he said.
Referring to the expected touchdown, former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said that it is a very complex manoeuvre and one has to be cautious as all systems have to work in unison for its success. "It's a very complex manoeuvre. We narrowly missed it (soft-landing on the Moon in Chandrayaan-2 mission) in the last two kilometres (above the lunar surface)," he told PTI.
In a setback to Russia, the Luna-25 Moon mission failed on Saturday as the spacecraft went out of control and crashed on Moon. It was the first Russian Moon mission since 1976 and was aiming to be the first to land on the South Pole of the Moon.
During its final pre-landing maneuver, the Russian space agency said in a statement in Russian that "an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters".
Former ISRO chief K Sivan said the failure of Russia's Luna-25 moon mission will have no impact on the Chandrayaan-3 venture.