India Awaits As Chandrayaan Set For Historic Touchdown Today At 6.04 PM

India takes center stage as Chandrayaan-3 makes an attempt to land on the Lunar surface on Wednesday.

According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Vikram Landing, which is all set to begin at 5:45 PM today, will land at 6:04 PM on the lunar surface in spite of all the complications. Here is how the landing will take place.

First, Vikram will check if there are any boulders or craters as hurdles through a verification process at a height of 150 metres. Next, it will take its vertical or alternate position whatever is necessary. If it chooses for the latter position it might take 52 seconds. It will then reach a height of 60 metres and proceed to an altitude of 10 metres and finally, it will take 9 seconds for its soft landing.

Earlier, the ISRO reported that the mission will land according to the schedule, and the system is monitored continuously. "Smooth sailing is continuing, The Mission Operations Complex (at ISRO) is buzzed with energy and excitement!" ISRO posted on X, formerly Twitter.

ISRO on Tuesday released images of the Moon captured by the Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC) of the Chandrayaan-3 mission from an altitude of about 70 km on August 19.

LPDC images assist the Lander Module (LM) of the mission, scheduled to make a soft landing on the Lunar surface on Wednesday, in determining its position (latitude and longitude) by matching them against an onboard moon reference map, the Bengaluru-headquartered national space agency said.

The ISRO on Monday released images of the 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 Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre (SAC), a major research and development centre of ISRO.

Chandrayaan-3, launched on July 14, is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.