Chennai : The Indian space agency is focused on landing its moon lander on Wednesday evening and is not looking at any postponement or Plan B, said a top official about the country’s third moon mission Chandrayaan-3. “The landing is confirmed on Wednesday evening as originally planned,” S. Somanath, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS.
Such a confident statement indicates that all the systems of the moon lander are in good health. Somanath was reacting when queried about a senior officials’ statement saying the landing will be postponed to August 27, if there are problems in the lander systems. The official had also said, in the case of landing on August 27, then the new landing site will be about 400 km away from the original landing site on the moon. The Indian space agency has also tweeted that the mission is on schedule.
“Systems are undergoing regular checks. Smooth sailing is continuing. The Mission Operations Complex (MOX) is buzzed with energy & excitement!” ISRO said. In case of any problem in the last minutes, then Plan B will kick in for ISRO. According to ISRO, the moon lander is capturing pictures of the landing site with its Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC).
LPDC images assist the Lander Module in determining its position (latitude and longitude) by matching them against an onboard moon reference map. The moon lander also carries another camera called the Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC). This camera assists in locating a safe landing area - without boulders or deep trenches.
Be that as it may, the main purpose of the Rs.600 crore Chandrayaan-3 mission is to safely soft land the moon lander on the lunar soil. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft comprises a propulsion module (weighing 2,148 kg), a lander (1,723.89 kg) and a rover (26 kg). Couple of days back, the lander got detached from the propulsion module and both are now circling the moon. The rover is inside the lander. (IANS)
