Space
India’s third moon exploration missions
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- ISRO plans to launch the third moon mission in aboard the LVM3 (formely GSLV MK-III) rocket from Sriharikota.
- The Chandrayaan-3 lander will bear the name Vikram (after Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian space programme) and the rover, Pragyan.
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- A propulsion module will carry the lander-rover configuration to a 100-km lundar orbit.
- Once the Vikram lander module makes it safely to the moon, it will deploy Pragyan, “which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility”.
- The lander, rover and the propulsion module will have payloads for performing experiments designed to give scientists new in-sights into the characteristics of earth’s lone natural satellite.
- The lander will have four payloads:
- Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive lonosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA)
- Chandra’s Surface Thermo physical Experiment (ChaSTE)
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- Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA)
- LASER Retroreflector Array (LRA).
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- The six-wheeled rover will have two payloads:
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- The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)
- LASER Induced Break-down Spectroscope (LIBS)
- In addition to these, there will be one payload on the propulsion module, the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE).
