31/05/2023
Rs 600 crore. That's the mammoth cost ISRO is incurring to launch its mission on July 12th.
While this is not the highest cost incurred by ISRO for its missions yet since the cost of mission was much higher at Rs 960 crore, the soon to be launched Chandravaan-3 is still turning out to be the most difficult one for India's national space agency yet.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has already arrived at India's spaceport, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andra Pradesh's Sriharikota. It is the third lunar exploration mission by Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) which is all set for a launch in July. The mission is expected to build upon the successes and lessons learned from its predecessors, Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2.
According to a Won report, the spacecraft, which the Isro plans to "precisely" land on the Moon later this year, has been wheeled into the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Under a thick cover of security, the slow-moving, specialised vehicle ferrying the spacecraft from the UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru arrived at India's spaceport last Friday evening (May 26).Chandrayaan-3 will be the Launch Vehicle Mark-Ill or LVM3 rocket's sixth orbital flight, and it has so far succeeded in all its flights, including two commercial missions.
So, what makes this Chandrayaan mission a significantly more difficult one compared to the previous missions? Its about learning the art of soft-landing.
The main objective of Chandrayaan-3 is to soft-land a rover on the lunar surface and conduct scientific experiments.
Soft-landing a spacecraft on the Moon - or any celestial body - is tremendously complicated and difficult.
Chandrayaan-2, even after successfully reaching a lunar orbit, failed due to its Vikram lander. It deviated from its flight path around 2 km above the lunar surface and made a hard-landing.
