CHANDRAYAAN 3 (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 – Sci ad Tech)

Context: Recently, India's groundbreaking Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon's south pole faced a setback as its Vikram lander and Pragyan rover failed to awaken during the lunar day, spanning 14 Earth days.

Chandrayaan 3

• About: It is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.
• Launched by: Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (LVM3 –M4).
• Significance: India became the first nation to soft-land on the surface of the Lunar south pole and overall the fourth to do a soft landing on moon.
• Objective: Demonstrate safe and soft landing on the surface of the Moon,

oConduct rover operations on the Moon, and

oConduct on-site experiments on the Lunar surface.

• Components: Lander (powered by 4 throttle-ale engines & equipped with Laser Doppler Velocimeter), Rover (no orbiter unlike Chandrayaan 2).
• The mission has six tools for studying science and an additional instrument on the propulsion module.
• Propulsion Module: It carries the SHAPE experiment, which uses spectro-polarimetry to study Earth's reflected light.