India on cusp of scripting history as Chandrayaan-3 is to land on moon on Wednesday evening

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, August 22

India is on the cusp of scripting history with the country’s third lunar probe, Chandrayaan-3, gearing up for the final phase of its 40-day space odyssey that is set to come to an end on Wednesday when the “Vikram” lander with the “Pragyan” rover in its belly starts its descent to the moon.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today announced that live telecast of the landing operations as monitored at the mission operations complex (MOX) at ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network) will start at 5.20 pm on Wednesday.

Success of the mission will make India the first country in the world to land its spacecraft on the lunar south pole.

“The mission is on schedule. Systems are undergoing regular checks. Smooth sailing is continuing. The MOX is buzzed with energy & excitement!” ISRO said in a post on X. The state-run space agency also released images of the moon captured by the lander position detection camera (LPDC) from an altitude of 70 km. The images assist the Lander Module in determining its position (latitude and longitude) by matching these against an onboard moon reference map. According ISRO Chairman S Somanath, the most critical part of the landing will be the process of reducing the velocity of the lander from 30 km height to the final landing, and the ability to reorient the spacecraft from a horizontal to vertical position.Vikram lander will hurtle toward moon at a velocity of 1.68 km per second or 6,048 km per hour, which is many times more than the speed of a jet.

The lander will gradually slow down with all its engines firing but it will be still almost horizontal to the surface of the moon. Subsequently, through some manoeuvers, the lander will be brought to a vertical position to the lunar surface.If all goes according the plan, India will become the fourth country after the US, Soviet Union and China to make a soft landing on moon.

Uttar Pradesh and Assam have asked all state-run schools to organise live telecast of the moon landing. The schools will be specifically opened for this purpose for an hour in the evening.

The UGC has asked higher education institutions to organise “special assemblies” between 5.30 pm and 6.30 pm for live-streaming.