After Chandrayaan-3, ISRO Preps for India’s First Solar Mission 

After Moon, Next Stop Sun: The red-letter day in the annals of Indian history is the collective effort of ISRO scientists led by its chairman S Somanath. India began its ambitious Chandrayaan-3 mission on July 14 from its spaceport in Sriharikota of Andhra Pradesh to explore the South Polar region with a rover inserted inside the Chandrayaan-3 Lander Module (LM). 

Chandrayaan-3 lands on moon’s south pole

The Chandrayaan-3 lander weighs over 1,700 kg and 2-metres tall in its size with a 26-kg lunar rover onboard. The Lander Module successfully soft-landed on the South Pole of Moon on Wednesday. The powered descent started at 5.44 pm as scheduled and after performing rough and fine braking manoeuvres, it made a soft landing on the moon's surface at 6.00 pm making India the first country to reach the lunar south pole. The moon lander had the support from ground stations across the world. 

The scientists at the ISRO control centre clapped and hugged each other after they achieved precision and success in making the moon lander touchdown on the moon's south polar region. The prime minister Narendra Modi, who is attending the BRICS summit in South Africa, also watched the landing and congratulated the ISRO scientists and called it ‘an unforgettable moment’. 

The lunar south pole is a region with water ice or frozen water and the Chandrayaan-3 will carry out a series of experiments including spectrometer analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface over the next two weeks. 

Lessons learnt from Chandrayaan-2 

In 2019, the previous Chandrayaan-2 mission failed as the ISRO scientists were successful in deploying an orbiter but it crash-landed. Taking lessons from the previous mission, the Indian scientists activated the automatic landing sequence of the spacecraft today.

ISRO prepares for solar mission

With the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's surface, ISRO is upbeat about the upcoming mission. The Indian space agency may start working on sending Aditya L1, the country’s first solar mission, to study the Sun as early as September. 

“The Sun exploratory mission is set to be launched next month,” the chief space scientist Somanath said. 

PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission:

Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun ☀️, is getting ready for the launch.

The satellite realised at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru has arrived at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota.

More pics… pic.twitter.com/JSJiOBSHp1

— ISRO (@isro) August 14, 2023

Aditya L1 to study Sun's dynamics

The Aditya L1 satellite is being integrated with the launch vehicle PSLV at the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) in Sriharikota. India's first space-based observatory will help the scientists get an in-depth understanding of the Sun's dynamics. 

ISRO is planning to put Aditya L1 in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) which is approximately 1.5 million km from the Earth. The PSLV will initially be placed in a low earth orbit. Later, the spacecraft will then be launched towards the L1 point by using an on-board propulsion. After moving towards L1, the spacecraft will leave the Earth's gravitational Sphere of Influence triggering the cruise phase. It is then the spacecraft will be injected into a huge halo orbit around L1.

Also Read: India Lands on the Moon!