Chennai: As the scientific community awaits with bated breath for the successful launch of India's Moon mission, Chandrayaan-3 on Friday, S Pandian, former director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre(SDSC) said that "Chandrayaan 3 lander is more robust as compared to Chandrayaan 2."
"Instead of one sensor, we put two sensor, if one sensor goes off, we'll be able to use the second sensor like that, we've brought in many instruments and softwares that can handle wider dispersion and it has got more flexibility to handle it," Pandian said.
The Chandrayaan programme was conceived by the Government of India and formally announced by former Prime Minister, the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee on August 15, 2003. Subsequently, the hardwork of the scientists paid off when the maiden mission onboard ISRO's trusted PSLV-C 11 rocket lifted off on October 22, 2008.
According to the Indian Space Research Organisation, PSLV-C11 was an updated version of the standard configuration of a PSLV. Weighing 320 tonnes at lift-off, the vehicle used larger strap-on motors to achieve higher payload capability. It carried 11 scientific instruments built in India, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, and Bulgaria.
While the mission achieved all the desired objectives, the orbit of the spacecraft was further raised to 200 km in May 2009, months after the launch. The satellite made over 3,400 orbits around the Moon, more than what was expected by the ISRO team, and the mission finally concluded as the space agency's scientists declared communication was lost from the spacecraft on August 29, 2009.
Buoyed by the success, Chandrayaan-2 was conceived as a more complex mission by ISRO as it carried an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) to explore the unexplored South Pole of the moon. After the lift-off on July 22, 2019, Chandrayaan 2 was successfully inserted into a lunar orbit on August 20 the same year.
Also read: India's ambitious leap for moon today with Chandrayaan-3; 10points
The Chandrayaan-2 mission failed to achieve the desired soft landing on the moon's surface, leaving the ISRO team dejected. Chandrayaan 2 mission was aimed at expanding the lunar scientific knowledge through a detailed study of topography, seismography, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition, and thermo-physical characteristics of topsoil, leading to a new understanding of the origin and evolution of the moon.
Friday's Chandrayaan-3 mission follows the Chandrayaan-2 which is aimed at mastering the soft landing on the surface of the moon. A successful landing on the lunar surface would make India only the fourth country to achieve the feat after the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union. (PTI Video)
