ISRO said on Sunday that the Chandrayaan-3 mission will undergo the second and final deboosting operation that will bring its lander module closer to the Moon. The deboosting operation reduced the orbit of the lander module to 25 km x 134 km. The Indian Space Research Organization said the module would undergo internal testing and wait for sunrise at the designated landing site.
„The second and final deboosting (deceleration) operation has successfully reduced the LM orbit to 25 km x 134 km. The module will undergo internal testing and await sunrise at the designated landing site,” ISRO said in a filing. X’ (formerly Twitter).
When will Chandrayaan-3 land on the moon?
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-up mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate the end-to-end capability of safely landing and hovering on the lunar surface. The final deboosting process means that the Chandrayaan module will attempt a soft landing at the South Pole from its current orbit (25 km x 134 km). ISRO said it is expected to make a powerful descent towards the lunar surface on August 23 at 5.45 pm IST.
If it successfully lands on the moon, India will become the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to achieve this feat. After a soft landing, the module is expected to deploy a chemical analysis rover in place on the lunar surface during its maneuver.
Race with Russia’s Luna-25
Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft, launched earlier this month, was expected to descend towards the lunar surface at the same time as the Chandrayaan-3 landing. However, the country’s space agency, Roscosmos, reported an „abnormal situation” aboard its lunar probe Luna-25 on Saturday.
Roscosmos said the spacecraft ran into an unspecified problem while trying to enter orbit before landing, and its experts were investigating the situation.
„During the operation, an unusual situation occurred in the automated station, which did not allow to perform the maneuver with specified parameters,” Roscosmos said in a Telegram post.
Roscosmos did not specify whether the incident would prevent Luna-25 from landing.