Chandrayaan-3 landing: All you need to know about the mission, what happens after it lands on the Moon

If Chandrayaan-3’s landing on August 23 is not possible, ISRO has a backup plan for August 27. ISRO scientists will decide two hours before the landing time if it’s suitable to land, considering the lander’s health and Moon’s conditions. If all is well, the landing will be on August 23. The landing will happen between 5:30 PM and 6:15 PM. The Vikram Lander is equipped with special cameras and tools for a safe landing. If the landing goes ahead, the lander will work with different tools to study the Moon’s surface and environment.

Highlights

• Chandrayaan-3 is a Moon lander and rover mission by India’s space agency ISRO.
• The spacecraft successfully launched on July 14. It is expected to touch down in the Moon’s south polar region around August 23 or 24.
• The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover are equipped with science instruments designed to deepen our understanding of the Moon.

And finally, what happens after Chandrayaan-3 successfully lands on the Moon?

Spacecraft are often carrying certain instruments and experiments with them (called payloads) that observe and record what is happening in Space. This information is then relayed to Earth for scientists to analyse and study.

The six payloads on the Vikram lander and rover Pragyan remain the same as the previous mission. There will be four scientific payloads on the lander to study lunar quakes, thermal properties of the lunar surface, changes in the plasma near the surface, and a passive experiment to help accurately measure the distance between Earth and the Moon. The fourth payload comes from NASA.

There are two payloads on the Rover, designed to study the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface and to determine the composition of elements such as magnesium, aluminium and iron in the lunar soil and rocks.