Around 8:30 am IST, Wednesday, ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 craft yet again retro-fired its engines while circling the moon. This 'reverse-firing' of the engine, slowed down the spacecraft and pushed it closer towards the moon. This engine firing brought the craft from a 150km x 177km orbit around the moon to a near-circular 153km x 163km orbit.
"Today’s successful firing, needed for a short duration, has put Chandrayaan-3 into an orbit of 153 km x 163 km, as intended.
"With this, the lunar-bound manoeuvres are completed. It’s time for preparations as the Propulsion Module and the Lander Module gear up for their separate journeys. Separation of the Lander Module from the Propulsion Module is planned for August 17, 2023," ISRO said in a statement.
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On Thursday, August 17, the Chandrayaan-3 integrated spacecraft is expected to separate into two parts - the propulsion module and the Lander module. The propulsion module is the key portion of the craft that steered the 3.9-tonne spacecraft all the way from Earth's orbit to the lunar orbit and thereafter got the craft to its present orbit. Henceforth, the propulsion module will continue to be in its orbit, while the lander module continues its journey towards a lunar soft landing.
Meanwhile, the sensors and engines on board the Lander module are to be tested. In the journey so far, ISRO has not tested these systems in space and now, as the craft is closer to the moon, these systems will be tested for their health and performance.
This includes the four 800 Newton throttleable engines (which are meant to help in slowing down and soft-landing the craft) and the various sensors that are meant to provide data about the craft's velocity, altitude, attitude (orientation), and other technical parameters. When the engines are test-fired, they will be commanded to fire in various combinations and similar to how it has to work during the lunar landing.
"During this process of engine testing, the orbit would reduce to 100km x 30km. The craft will remain in that orbit for around four days" M. Sankaran, Director of ISRO's UR Rao Satellite Centre, had told WION. ISRO hopes to execute the lunar soft-landing by 5:47 pm on Wednesday, 23 August.
The journey so far...
Chandrayaan-3 was launched on 14 July from India's spaceport, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. Sixteen minutes after lift-off, the craft was placed in a highly elliptical orbit around the Earth. Thereafter, by performing five engine burns on as many occasions, the craft gradually raised its orbit and slingshot itself further away from Earth, while continuing to remain in Earth's orbit.
On the intervening night of July 31 and August 1, Chandrayaan-3 performed its Trans-Lunar injection burn. By this long-duration firing of its engines, the craft was pushed out of Earth's gravitational influence and hurled towards Lunar gravitational influence. Since then, the craft has been retro-firing its engines to slow itself down and lower its orbit.
Objectives of Chandrayaan-3
India's third lunar spacecraft comprises a propulsion module, lander, and rover.
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The combined mass of them is 3.9 tonnes. The key goal of the craft is to perform a lunar soft-landing and perform in-situ analysis near 70 degrees latitude of the Lunar surface. The mission is expected to last 14 earth days or one lunar day, during which the six-wheeled rover and the lander will perform their respective experiments.
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Chandrayaan-3 just a week away from lunar soft landing - WION
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