File picture of Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander
| Photo Credit: ISRO

ISRO on Monday said the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 successfully underwent a hop test when it made the soft-landing again on the lunar surface.

On command it (Vikram lander) fired the engines, elevated itself by about 40 cm as expected and landed safely at a distance of 30 to 40 cm away, ISRO said in an update on ‘X’.

Noting that the Vikram lander exceeded its mission objectives, ISRO said the importance of the exercise was that this ‘kick-start’ enthuses future sample return and human missions.

“Vikram soft-landed on the moon, again! Vikram Lander exceeded its mission objectives. It successfully underwent a hop experiment. On command, it fired the engines, elevated itself by about 40 cm as expected and landed safely at a distance of 30-40 cm away,” ISRO said in a post.

“Importance?: This ‘kick-start’ enthuses future sample return and human missions! All systems performed nominally and are healthy. Deployed Ramp, ChaSTE and ILSA were folded back and redeployed successfully after the experiment,” the space agency added.

India scripted history by soft-landing the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar surface on August 23.

India became the fourth country to touch the lunar surface and first to ever reach the south pole of the moon.

Students with painted faces surround a replica of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft in Chennai on August 22, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Four years after its predecessor crashed on the lunar surface minutes before touch down, Chandrayaan-3’s lander module with the rover in its belly on Wednesday will once again attempt to land on the Moon at 6.04 p.m.

Around 5.45 p.m., the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru, will initiate the powered descent of the lander module.

Also Read — What next for ISRO after Chandrayaan-3 mission?

If all goes as per plan, 19 minutes later at 6.04 p.m., the lander would make a safe and soft landing on the Moon and would make India the fourth country to achieve this feat after the U.S., Russia and China.

The complex powered descent during the Chandrayaan-2’s was referred to as “15 minutes of terror” by the then ISRO Chairman K. Sivan. It can be recalled that Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander almost evaded this “15 minutes of terror” but it gave up at an altitude of 2.1 km before touchdown and subsequently lost communication with the ground stations.

More robust

However, with the Chandrayaan-3 mission, ISRO has made several changes to make the mission a success, which include strengthening of the landers’ legs, reduction in the number of engines, increasing the quantity of propellant, inclusion of new sensors among others.

Earlier this month, ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said that even if all sensors fail while attempting to make the soft landing on the lunar surface, the lander would still be able to land provided that the propulsion system works.

“If all the sensors fail, we will still be able to land provided that the propulsion system works. Even if the two engines fail, we will be able to land, that’s how the design has been made,” Mr. Somanath said.

He added that this time they have made all the systems more robust and have changed the guidance design and introduced newer algorithms.

Rover deployment

A few hours after ISRO succeeds in making a safe and soft landing of the lander on the lunar surface, it will deploy the rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. The lander and the rover with a mission life of one Lunar day (14 earth days) have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission was launched on July 14 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Since then Earth-bound manoeuvres, crucial trans-lunar injection (TLI), lunar orbit insertion, orbit reduction manoeuvres were carried out along with the separation of the propulsion module and the lander module.

ISRO on Tuesday said the mission was on schedule with systems checks being carried out by scientists and engineers. “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 posted on social media platform X on Tuesday.

A view of the moon captured by the Chandrayaan-3. Twitter/@isro

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on August 18 released two videos of the moon which was captured by India’s third moon mission Chandrayaan-3.

The first video shows the moon captured by the Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC) on August 15, 2023, and in the second one the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1 has taken a video of the moon just after the separation of the Lander Module from the Propulsion Module on August 17, 2023.

The lander module on August 17 successfully separated from the propulsion module after 44 days of travel.

“Thanks for the ride, mate! ’ said the Lander Module (LM). LM is successfully separated from the Propulsion Module (PM). LM is set to descend to a slightly lower orbit upon a deboosting planned for tomorrow around 1600 Hrs., IST.” the space agency posted on social media platform X after the successful separation.

This is the third video released by the ISRO after the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. On August 6 it shared its first video of the moon as viewed by Chandrayaan-3 during Lunar Orbit Insertion on August 5.