Though the eyes of the nation will be trained on its rover Pragyan and lander Vikram as it nears the lunar surface on August 23, the scientific equipment on the craft – three payloads on Vikram and two on Pragyan – is no less impressive. This time around, the target landing spot was expanded from a 500m x 500m patch to a 4km x 2.5km area, the fuel capacity was bolstered, and a propulsion module was added. Indian Space Research Organisation chief S Somanath said the agency gleaned three major missteps in the previous mission – the engines developing higher thrust than what was intended the craft making turns too fast and trying to reach a landing spot that was too far by increasing its velocity. ![]() Undaunted, Indian scientists have again taken up the mantle. PREMIUM Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, lifts off from Sriharikota, India. Chandrayaan 2 performed its other objectives – deploy an orbiter successfully, and study the lunar atmosphere and surface – creditably but its closing moments ended in heartbreak, when the lander veered off course in the final stretch of the descent due to a software glitch and crashed on the lunar surface. The mission was successful, prompting scientists to set a far more complex and daring objective for the next iteration in 2019: successfully landing a craft on the moon. On board the craft were payloads designed to explore the terrain, topography and atmosphere of the moon. The first phase began with the Chandrayaan 1 launch in October 2008. That year, then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort that India had decided to go to the moon in an indigenously developed craft, attempting to become only the fifth entity – after the United States, the erstwhile Soviet Union, China, Japan and the European Space Agency – to successfully reach the lunar surface. In a blaze of golden light and white smoke clouds, India’s third mooncraft blasted off from Sriharikota on Friday, attempting to etch a successful third chapter in a journey that first began in 2003.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |