India’s Goal: Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon

UPDATE August 23, 2023 12:50 UTC

SUCCESS! India is now the fourth nation to successfully land on the Moon, and the first to successfully land near the Moon’s south pole.

Vikram, the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s lander, will, if all goes well, touch down near the Moon’s south pole today: Wednesday, August 23, 2023.

A successful landing will make India one of four spacefaring nations with a presence on the Lunar surface.

The lander will start its powered descent —

• This morning
• Around noon
• This afternoon

The time of day depends on where you are. For me, it’ll be early Wednesday morning.

That’s why I’ve embedded an ISRO YouTube video in this post: so I’ll have something queued up and ready to view. That’s assuming I wake up in time.

ISRO’s telecast starts, I gather, at 17:20 IST (India Standard Time). That’s 11:50 UTC, 6:50 a.m. here in central Minnesota: assuming I’ve done the time conversions right, which is a big assumption.

And in case the YouTube stream doesn’t work, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) says their telecast will be available elsewhere.

• Indian Space Research Organisation, Department of Space
  • Chandrayaan-3
  • Message on Chandrayaan-3 Soft-landing telecast
  • LVM3-M4/Chandrayaan-3 Moon Mission brochure, pdf

Chandrayaan-3: a Very Quick Overview

Chandrayaan-3 is mostly a technology demonstration/test, but includes several science payloads.

ISRO has upgraded their Vikram lander since the Chandrayaan-2 mission, so there’s a good chance for a successful touch down near the Moon’s south pole. The next step will be deploying and testing ISRO’s Lunar rover, Pragyan.

I think those are their names, but ISRO used the same names for its Chandrayaan-2 mission, back in 2019.

So it’s possible that Vikram and Pragyan are series names, like “Mustang” for a line of Ford sports cars. Or should that be nameplate? And I’ve long since drifted off-topic.

I plan on taking a longer look at the Chandrayaan-3 mission in Saturday’s post.

Including, if I can find more material, something about what ISRO calls the Lander Hazard Detection & Avoidance Camera and Processing Algorithm and an NGC (Navigation, Guidance & Control) system.

In non-geek-speak, the Chandrayaan-3 mission has a smart lander.

The Times of India has a pretty good article about what the Vikram lander will be doing during descent and landing.

I put a link to that, and other resources, in this post’s footnote.¹

Whatever happens today, the Chandrayaan-3 mission has already had significant success. For one thing, Vikram contacted the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.

“‘Welcome, buddy!’ — Contact established between Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and Chandrayaan-3 lander module“
PTI, The Tribune (August 21, 2023)

“ISRO on Monday said a two-way communication between the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter and Chandrayaan-3’s Lunar Module has been established.

“‘Welcome, buddy!’ Ch-2 orbiter formally welcomed Ch-3 LM. Two-way communication between the two is established. MOX has now more routes to reach the LM, the national space agency said in a post on ‘X’.

“ISRO said on Sunday the lander module of Chandrayaan-3, the third lunar mission of India, is expected to touch down on the surface of the Moon around 6.04 pm on August 23….”

And that’s all I have today. Like I said, I’ll be back with more Saturday.

Meanwhile, here’s how I see humanity’s exploration of our neighborhood:

• “International Space Station: Seven More Years“
  (May 6, 2023 )
• “Commercial Space Services and Changing Times“
  (April 29, 2023)
• “Snow Cruiser, Moon Buggies, Mars Tractors“
  (March 4, 2023)
• “Single Stage to Orbit, Eventually“
  (December 17, 2022)
• “GSLV, Rocket Lab: Looking Good“
  (June 9, 2017)

¹ India and Lunar exploration:

• Wikipedia
  • Chandrayaan-2
  • Chandrayaan-3
  • Chandrayaan programme
  • List of missions to the Moon
  • Exploration of the Moon
  • Ford Mustang
• “Chandrayaan-3: This is how Vikram will decide lunar landing“
  The Times of India (August 22, 2023)
• “Chandrayaan-3: India’s lunar lander Vikram searches for safe Moon landing spot“
  Geeta Pandey, BBC News (August 21, 2023)
• NASA
  • Chandrayaan 3, Chandrayaan 3 – NASA – NSSDCA – Spacecraft – Details (updated August 22, 2023)
  • Chandrayaan-3 Launches to the Moon (July 19, 2023
  • Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrscope (LIBS), NSSDCA (July 12, 2023)
• ISRO
  • Chandrayaan-3: details, updated
  • Chandrayaan-3 Mission: The moon, as seen by Lander Imager Camera 1 on August 17, 2023 (August 17, 2023
  • GSLV MkIII-M1 Successfully Launches Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, press release (July 22, 2019)
  • Chandrayaan-3
  • LIVE telecast of Chandrayaan-3 Soft-landing
  • LVM3-M4/Chandrayaan-3 Moon Mission brochure, pdf