In the wee hours of September 7, 2019, India’s moon lander Vikram met its end on the lunar surface, hurtling down at 58 m per second when it was supposed to descend gently at 2 m per second. Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, ISRO’s current chief, would for sure prefer a pat on the back rather than a comforting hug at the end of the upcoming ₹615-crore Chandrayaan-3 mission. Landing (not crashing) on the moon is the central objective of ISRO’s planned third lunar exploration mission, slated to launch on July 14. The side-mounted solar panels of the Chandrayaan-3 lander are designed to provide more power — 738 W compared with 650 W earlier, though this is not a factor in the landing. A touchdown on the moon surface on August 23 or 24 would make India the fourth country to demonstrate lunar soft-landing (after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.)

Source: The Hindu July 09, 2023 09:06 UTC