Imminent arrival of the Indian mission to the South Pole of the Moon

2023-08-22 12:09:58

After the crash of the Russian probe Luna-25 last weekend, India may now become the first country to land a ship on the hostile south pole of the Moon, and the fourth to successfully land on the moon, after Russia, United States and China.

The expectation in the Asian country for the arrival at our satellite of its space mission Chandrayaan-3composed of a lander and a rover explorerhas not stopped growing in recent days.

Expectation grows in India before the next arrival of a space mission to the Moon. / EFE/EPA/IDREES MOHAMMED

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced that it will broadcast the moon landing live, scheduled for 2:34 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time) this Wednesday August 23rd. The event can be seen through the website of the space agency, as well as on its YouTube and Facebook profiles, or on the state television channel DD.

Among the growing expectation, ISRO has published this week in the red social Xformerly known as Twitter, several photographs of the Moon captured by Chandrayaan-3, which show prominent points of its geography, such as huge craters and the so-called lunar maria.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:

Here are the images of
Lunar far side area
captured by the
Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC).

This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area — without boulders or deep trenches — during the descent is developed by ISRO… pic.twitter.com/rwWhrNFhHB

— ISRO (@isro) August 21, 2023

Since it took off from Earth on July 14, the Indian mission has lived a kind of modern space race against the Russian Luna-25 mission, which took off on August 11, for being the first to reach the South Pole of the Moon. .

The accident of the Russian probe has paved the way for the Indian spacecraft to become the first to reach the lunar south pole

However, the accident of the Russian probe, which crashed into the lunar surface when everything indicated that it was going to land two days before Chandrayaan-3, paved the way for the Indian spacecraft to become the first to achieve this feat. .

India experienced a failure in 2019 similar to that experienced by Russia yesterday, when its mission Chandrayaan-2 also crashed against the lunar surface due to technical problems during the landing stage.

Investigate the presence of water

If it lands successfully this time, the Indian probe will carry out scientific experiments and collect data on the mineral composition of the satellite and the presence of agua in this region of the Moon.

Indeed, India’s first space mission to the Moon, launched in 2008, discovered direct evidence of water on our satellite and the data it collected during more than 3,400 orbits of the satellite during which it failed to land.

The mission will be active during a lunar light period, about 14 Earth days.

Furthermore, others of the goals Chandrayaan-3’s main goals are to demonstrate that it can make a safe and smooth landing on the lunar surface and move the rover.

This mission will remain active during a period of lunar light, which roughly translates into about 14 Earth days, although it is not ruled out that it could last a little longer.

Indian students with their faces painted as the Moon during an activity on the Chandrayaan-3 mission. / EFE/EPA/IDREES MOHAMMED

“The mission is on time. The systems are subjected to periodic checks. Smooth sailing continues,” ISRO reported Tuesday as its spacecraft completed the last orbit lap before beginning the moon landing.

Just 24 hours after beginning the descent maneuver, the mission command center, the MOX“is full of energy and emotion,” added the Indian organization along with images that locate the position of the ship at an altitude of 70 kilometers on the Moon.

The “20 minutes of terror”

Vikramas the lander has been baptized and which translates as “courageous”, plans to begin the final descent with a route of about 25 kilometers that is referred to in the Indian media as “the 20 minutes of terror”.

The “most critical part of the landing is the process of slowing down the module as it begins its descent from a height of 30 km until landing,” ISRO chief, recently told the media. Sreedhara Somanath.

The Vikram (“courageous”) lander will have a final descent of about 25 km which is called by the Indian media “the 20 minutes of terror”

In this step, the landing speed is about 1.68 km per second, with the Chandrayaan-3 in a horizontal position, so the maneuver will consist of going to the vertical position during the descent.

“It is a very interesting calculation from the mathematical point of view. We have done many simulations. This is where we had the problem last time,” Somanath said to explain the reasons that led to the failure of the previous mission.

Chandrayaan-3 It has needed 40 days for its journey since it took off in mid-July with India’s largest and heaviest launch rocket.

Despite this momentum, the mission’s propulsion is not enough to be sent to a direct point on the Moon, so it took a longer journey that took it to orbit the Earth for several days, and then our satellite, until get your position. Now it is preparing for its imminent and expected moon landing.

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