Chandrayaan-3 Launch and Types of Moon Missions

Science Affairs Space

Context: The Chandrayaan-3 mission is India’s third lunar mission and second attempt to make a soft landing on the surface of the Moon.

Chandrayaan-3 is a planned third lunar exploration mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
It will land on the south pole of Moon.
It will consist of a lander (Vikram) and a rover (Pragyan) similar to Chandrayaan-2 but not have an orbiter.
Its propulsion module will behave like a communication relay satellite.
It will carry the lander and rover configuration until the spacecraft is in a 100 km lunar orbit.
It will be launched by using GSLV MK III.

After the last Apollo mission in the early 1970s, there have not been many advancements in sending spacecraft to the moon.
Although this began to change in the 1990s, the real impetus came after Chandrayaan-1 in 2008, discovered the presence of water on the lunar surface.

In these missions, the spacecraft passed near the Moon but did not get into an orbit.
These were designed to study the Moon from a distance.
Examples: Pioneer 3 and 4 of the United States and Luna 3 of the then USSR.

These were spacecraft that were designed to get into a lunar orbit and carry out prolonged studies of the Moon’s surface and atmosphere.
India’s Chandrayaan-1 was an Orbiter.
These are the most common way to study a planetary body.
Chandrayaan-2 mission also consisted of an orbiter, which is still operational and orbiting the Moon at an altitude of around 100 km.

These are an extension of Orbiter missions.
While the main spacecraft keeps going around the Moon, one or more instruments on board make an uncontrolled landing on the lunar surface.
They get destroyed after the impact but still send some useful information about the Moon while on their way.
One of the instruments on Chandrayaan-1, called Moon Impact Probe, (MIP) was also made to crash land on the Moon’s surface in a similar way.
ISRO claimed that the data sent by the MIP had presented additional evidence of the presence of water on the Moon.

These missions involve the soft landing of the spacecraft on the Moon.
These are more complicated than the Orbiter missions.
The first landing on the moon was accomplished by the Luna 9 spacecraft of the then USSR In 1966.
It also relayed the first picture from the Moon’s surface.
The lander spacecraft are bulky and remain stationary after landing. Thus, can carry out observations and collect data from close quarters.
They cannot come in contact with the Moon’s surface or move around.

These are an extension of the lander missions to overcome the difficulties of the lander.
Rovers are special wheeled payloads on the lander that can detach themselves from the spacecraft and move around on the moon’s surface.
They can collect very useful information that instruments within the lander would not be able to obtain.
The rover onboard Vikram lander in the Chandrayaan-2 mission was called Pragyaan.

These involve the landing of astronauts on the moon’s surface.
Only NASA has been able to land human beings on the moon between 1969 and 1972.
NASA’s Artemis III, currently planned for 2025 will once again send humans to the lunar surface.