Chandrayaan-3: 11 Facts About India's Moon Landing Mission

Four years after it broke many hearts, ISRO's Chandrayaan is all set to soar towards the moon in its third expedition on Friday in an attempt to put the country in an elite club of nations that accomplished lunar missions with a soft landing.

Chandrayaan-2 failed to achieve the desired soft landing on the moon surface in 2019, leaving the ISRO team dejected. Leaving the past behind, the space agency is now prepped up for the launch of Chandrayaan-3.

Here, we bring you the list of 11 things that everyone should know about Chandrayaan-3.

• Chandrayaan-3 is the third lunar exploration mission ready for takeoff in the fourth operational mission (M4) of LVM3 launcher.

• A success in this mission will make India the fourth country to land its Spacecraft on the surface of the Moon after the United States, China and the former Soviet Union.

• Instead of a success-based design in Chandrayaan-2, the ISRO has opted for a failure-based design in Chandrayaan-3, focused on what all can fail and how to protect it and ensure a successful landing.

• Chandrayaan-3 has more fuel so it has more capability to travel or handle dispersion or move to an alternate landing site and has additional solar panels on other surfaces to ensure that it generates power no matter how it lands.

• The reason to fix the launch window during the month of July similar to Chandrayaan-2 mission (July 22, 2019) is because the earth and moon would be closer to each other during this part of the year.

• The moon's south pole region has been chosen because the Lunar South Pole remains much larger than that at the North pole. There could be a possibility of the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it.

• Chandrayaan-3 mission consists of an indigenous propulsion module, lander module and a rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for inter-planetary missions.

• The largest and heaviest LVM3 rocket (formerly GSLV MkIII), fondly called as 'fat boy' by ISRO scientists for its heavylift capability, has completed six consecutive successful missions. The LVM3 rocket is a composite of three modules -- propulsion, lander and rover (which is housed inside the lander). Friday's mission is the fourth operational flight of LVM3 which aims to launch the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into a Geo Transfer Orbit.

• According to scientists, after the lift-off at 2.35 pm on Friday, around 16 minutes after lift-off, propulsion module is expected to get separated from the rocket and would orbit the earth for about 5-6 times in an elliptical cycle with 170 km closest and 36,500 km farthest from earth moving towards the lunar orbit.

• The propulsion module along with the lander, after gaining speed would proceed for an over a month long journey towards reaching the orbit of the moon until it goes 100 km above the lunar surface. After reaching the desired position, the lander module would begin its descent for a soft landing on the south pole region of the moon and this action is expected to take place on August 23 or 24, scientists at ISRO said.

• The significance about Chandrayaan-3 mission, unlike its unsuccessful predecessor, is that the Propulsion Module has a payload -- SHAPE -- Spectro- polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth which is to study earth from lunar orbit. ISRO said the SHAPE is an experimental payload to study the spectro-polarimetric signatures of the Earth in the near-infrared wavelength range. Apart from the SHAPE payload, the Propulsion Module's main function is to carry the Lander Module from launch vehicle injection orbit to till lander separation.