Oriented on making people closer

The Indian automatic lunar station "Chandrayan-3" transmitted the first images taken from the lunar orbit, to which it successfully entered last Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) reported.

ISRO noted that all Chandrayan-3 systems are functioning normally, adding that for the third time in a row, its specialists have successfully put the spacecraft into lunar orbit, not counting the Martian orbit.

The first lunar mission "Chandrayan-1" was launched by ISRO in 2008, the second "Chandrayan-2" — in 2019. During the second mission, it was also supposed to deliver a lunar rover to the surface of the Moon using the Vikram lander, but the attempt to land the spacecraft failed.

The current mission includes the delivery of the new Pragyaan rover to the surface of the Earth's natural satellite using the Vikram lander. If successful, India will become the fourth country in the world after the USSR, the USA and China, which managed to make a soft landing of a spacecraft on the moon. The weight of the lander is 1500 kg, the lunar rover is 26 kg.

"The lunar rover has five instruments that will be used to study the physical characteristics of the Moon's surface, the atmosphere near the surface and tectonic activity to study what is happening below the surface. I hope we will find something new," said ISRO head Sridhara Panicker Somanath.

After performing a number of maneuvers that will lower the orbit of the space station and place it above the lunar pole, an attempt will be made on August 23 to land the module with a lunar rover near the South Pole of the Moon. According to the schedule, the Pragyaan lunar rover mission will last 14 Earth days.

ORIENT news

Photo: isro.gov.in