posted 01-01-2020 10:36 AM               

Please use this topic to discuss India's Chandraayan-3 mission, the country's second attempt at landing a probe and rover on the moon.

posted 01-01-2020 10:44 AM               

Government has approved Chandrayaan-3, the project is ongoing. However, the project might take 14-16 months, which could result in works being pushed to 2021.

Mr Sivan said the new mission would land in the same area, and would "have a lander, rover and propulsion module like its predecessor". The new equipment is set to cost some $35m (£26m), while the full cost of the mission is set to be significantly more.

Jitendra Singh, junior minister for the department of space, has said the new mission will be "quite economical."

"The orbiter is already there. So we are going to be cutting cost," he told the Times of India.

posted 07-01-2022 09:07 AM               

About Chandrayaan-3, Somanath said currently a lot of tests were going on and added that "this time we are not in a hurry to go to the moon."

"This time we want to make sure we land on the moon."

"Currently the tests on lander propulsion and lander systems are underway. We want to make it very rugged. We have made the lander rugged. So some mass increase in lander has occurred. Its legs have been made stronger. Propulsion system needs to be rugged. Tests are going on at Mahendragiri for proving that. We want to look at the sensors. Last time we had doubts on sensors. So we are adding new sensors, helicopter sorties, experiments. Let us complete all tests and be clear," he further said.

posted 07-06-2023 12:39 PM               

Announcing the launch of Chandrayaan-3:

LVM3-M4/Chandrayaan-3 Mission: The launch is now scheduled for July 14, 2023, at 2:35 p.m. IST [5:05 a.m. EDT (0905 GMT)] from SDSC, Sriharikota.

posted 07-13-2023 10:15 PM               

Launch of LVM3-M4/Chandraayan-3 Mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre

posted 08-22-2023 10:20 PM               

The module does carry one instrument, the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planetary Earth (SHAPE) payload, which will study the spectral and polarimetric measurements of Earth from lunar orbit for the next three to six months.

posted 08-22-2023 10:26 PM               

The live telecast of the landing operations at MOX/ISTRAC begins at 5:20 p.m. IST (7:50 a.m. EDT) on August 23, 2023.

posted 08-23-2023 08:48 AM               

India is the first to arrive at the lunar south pole region, the new hot (or rather frigid?) property on the moon.

posted 08-23-2023 10:28 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
I still haven't seen a post-landing image taken by the lander...

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Here are the images from the Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera taken during the descent.

posted 08-23-2023 11:27 AM               

It shows a portion of Chandrayaan-3's landing site. Seen also is a leg and its accompanying shadow.

Chandrayaan-3 chose a relatively flat region on the lunar surface.

posted 08-24-2023 11:52 AM               

Here is how the Lander Imager Camera captured the moon's image just prior to touchdown.

posted 08-25-2023 09:50 AM               

A two-segment ramp facilitated the roll-down of the rover. A solar panel enabled the rover to generate power.

Here is how the rapid deployment of the ramp and solar panel took place, prior to the rolldown of the rover.

The deployment mechanisms, totalling 26 in the Ch-3 mission, were developed at U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC)/ISRO, Bengaluru.

...and here is how the Chandrayaan-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander to the Lunar surface.

posted 08-25-2023 05:19 PM               

Chandrayaan-2's Orbiter High-Resolution Camera (OHRC) — the camera with the best resolution anyone currently has around the moon — spots Chandrayaan-3 lander after the landing on Aug. 23, 2023.

posted 08-26-2023 01:49 PM               

The point where the moon lander of Chandrayaan-3 landed will now be known as "Shiv Shakti." In the success of Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, our women scientists, the country's Nari Shakti have played a big role.

The point on the Moon where Chandrayaan 2 left its imprints will now be called "Tiranga."

posted 08-30-2023 08:09 AM               

The "image of the mission" was taken by the navigation camera onboard the rover (NavCam).

posted 09-05-2023 04:27 PM               

NASA's LRO Observes Chandrayaan-3 Landing Site

NASA's LRO – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – spacecraft imaged the Chandrayaan-3 landing site on the Moon's surface.

The ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the Moon on Aug. 23, 2023. The Chandrayaan-3 landing site is located about 600 kilometers from the Moon's South Pole.

The LROC (short for LRO Camera) acquired an oblique view (42-degree slew angle) of the lander four days later. The bright halo around the vehicle resulted from the rocket plume interacting with the fine-grained regolith (soil).

posted 01-20-2024 11:20 AM               

Laser Instrument on NASA's LRO Successfully 'Pings' Indian Moon Lander

For the first time at the Moon, a laser beam was transmitted and reflected between an orbiting NASA spacecraft and an Oreo-sized device on ISRO's (Indian Space Research Organisation) Vikram lander on the lunar surface. The successful experiment opens the door to a new style of precisely locating targets on the Moon's surface.

At 3 p.m. EST on Dec. 12, 2023, NASA's LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) pointed its laser altimeter instrument toward Vikram. The lander was 62 miles, or 100 kilometers, away from LRO, near Manzinus crater in the Moon's South Pole region, when LRO transmitted laser pulses toward it. After the orbiter registered light that had bounced back from a tiny NASA retroreflector aboard Vikram, NASA scientists knew their technique had finally worked.

Above: ISRO's (Indian Space Research Organization) Vikram lander, with a NASA retroreflector on it, touched down on the Moon on Aug. 23, 2023. The camera aboard NASA's LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) took this picture four days later. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University)

Sending laser pulses toward an object and measuring how long it takes the light to bounce back is a commonly used way to track the locations of Earth-orbiting satellites from the ground. But using the technique in reverse – to send laser pulses from a moving spacecraft to a stationary one to determine its precise location – has many applications at the Moon, scientists say.

"We've showed that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the Moon's orbit," said Xiaoli Sun, who led the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, that developed the retroreflector on Vikram as part of a partnership between NASA and ISRO. "The next step is to improve the technique so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future."

Only 2 inches, or 5 centimeters, wide, NASA's tiny but mighty retroreflector, called a Laser Retroreflector Array, has eight quartz-corner-cube prisms set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame. The device is simple and durable, scientists say, requiring neither power nor maintenance, and can last for decades. Its configuration allows the retroreflector to reflect light coming in from any direction back to its source.

Above: Only 2 inches, or 5 centimeters, wide, NASA's Laser Retroreflector Array has eight quartz-corner-cube prisms set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame. This configuration allows the device to reflect light coming in from any direction back to its source. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

Retroreflectors can be used for many applications in science and exploration and, indeed, have been in use at the Moon since the Apollo era. By reflecting light back to Earth, the suitcase-size retroreflectors revealed that the Moon is moving away from our planet at a rate of 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) per year.

This new generation of tiny retroreflectors has even more applications than their larger predecessors. On the International Space Station, they're used as precision markers that help cargo-delivery spacecraft dock autonomously.

In the future, they could guide Artemis astronauts to the surface in the dark, for example, or mark the locations of spacecraft already on the surface, helping astronauts or uncrewed spacecraft land next to them.

But there's more work to do before retroreflectors can light up the Moon. The biggest hurdle to their immediate adoption is that LRO's altimeter, which has operated for 13 years beyond its primary mission, is the only laser instrument orbiting the Moon for now. But the instrument wasn't designed to pinpoint a target; since 2009, the altimeter – called LOLA - has been responsible for mapping the Moon's topography to prepare for missions to the surface.

"We would like LOLA to point to this Oreo-sized target and hit it every time, which is hard," said Daniel Cremons, a NASA Goddard scientist who works with Sun. It took the altimeter eight tries to contact Vikram's retroreflector.

LOLA works by dispatching five laser beams toward the Moon and measuring how long it takes each one to bounce back (the quicker the light returns, the less distance between LOLA and the surface, and thus the higher the elevation in that area). Each laser beam covers an area 32 feet, or 10 meters, wide, from a 62-mile, or 100-kilometer, altitude. Because there are large gaps between the beams, there is only a small chance that the laser pulse can contact a retroreflector during each pass of the lunar orbiter over the lander.

Altimeters are great for detecting craters, rocks, and boulders to create global elevation maps of the Moon. But they aren't ideal for pointing to within one-hundredth of a degree of a retroreflector, which is what's required to consistently achieve a ping. A future laser that slowly and continuously rakes the surface without any gaps in coverage would help tiny retroreflectors meet their potential.

For now, the team behind NASA's miniature retroreflectors will continue to use LRO's laser altimeter to help refine the position of targets on the surface, especially landers.

Several NASA retroreflectors are slated to fly aboard public and private Moon landers, including one on JAXA's (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) SLIM lander, due to land on the Moon on Jan. 19, 2024, and one built by Intuitive Machines, a private company scheduled to launch its spacecraft to the Moon in mid-February. Intuitive Machines will carry six NASA payloads, including the retroreflector, under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.