Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chief K Sivan said on Wednesday in a press conference that the government has approved the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Chandrayaan-3 is India’s 3rd mission to the moon.
Chandrayaan-3 is the successor to the Chandrayaan-2 mission. In the Chandrayaan-2 mission, India successfully placed orbiter around the moon but failed to soft-land in the south pole of the moon. Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander had a hard landing and crashed on the lunar surface. This time with the Chandrayaan-3 mission India will only to try to land on the moon and there will be no orbiter as the orbiter of the Chandrayaan-2 mission is working perfectly.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is currently working on the Chandrayaan-3. “However, the project might take 14-16 months, which could result in works being pushed to 2021,”
Chandrayaan-3 Mission Structure
As per ISRO, the total cost of Chandrayaan-3 mission will be over Rs 600 crores ($84 million). Whereas the Chandrayaan-3 mission has cost India Rs 960 crores ($126 million). Sivan said that the Chandrayaan-3 mission will cost Rs 250 crores ($35million) for the lander, rover, and propulsion module, whereas the launch of the mission will cost another Rs 365 crores ($51million). It makes the total cost of mission equal to Rs 615 crores.
How Difficult Is To Land In Moon
Till now 38 soft-landing attempts made on the moon, only about half have succeeded. Only the United States, Russia, and China have landed on the moon. Beijing’s Chang’e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon last year, while Israel made an unsuccessful attempt to land its Beresheet spacecraft on the moon in April 2019.
Gaganyaan
ISRO is also working on Gaganyaan alongside Chandrayaan-3 mission. Gaganyaan is India’s first man mission to space. Four astronauts for the mission has been identified and they will be sent to Russia for training in the third week of January. ISRO is planning to launch Gaganyaan in 2022. “We had good progress on Gaganyaan in 2019. The training for four astronauts has been planned in the third week of January,” said Sivan.
ISRO’s Plan
“We have made good progress on Chandrayaan 2. Even though we could not land successfully, the orbiter is still functioning. It’s going to function for the next seven years to produce science data,” Mr Sivan said today. He said land acquisition for a second spaceport is going on in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi.
In 2019 our strategy mainly was expansion. We wanted to expand ISRO horizontally. The second strategy adopted in 2019 was capacity building on an outreach programme. The third is the reduction of the physical work in ISRO. We have also constituted a Gaganyaan advisory committee,” Mr Sivan said. He said ISRO plans to launch at least 25 space missions in 2020.
