Following a 40-day voyage commencing from the Sathish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, the Chandrayaan-3 mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is currently gearing up for its lunar landing. If the operation unfolds as planned, the Vikram lander is anticipated to achieve a gentle touch down on the Moon’s surface at 6:04 PM IST on August 23. You can witness the live coverage of the landing event through the provided streaming link.
Ahead of the launch, ISRO said it is ready to initiate the mission’s automatic landing sequence. The space agency plans to do it at 5.44 PM IST. From this point onwards, the Vikram lander will use its onboard computers and logic to try to make a soft landing on the Moon.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission is the follow-up to the Chandrayaan-2 mission of 2019, when the Vikram lander crashed into the lunar surface. The primary objective of the mission is simple—showcase the space agency’s capability to complete a soft-landing on the Moon. If the mission succeeds, India will join a small and exclusive club of countries that have managed to soft land on the Moon. So far, the club has three members—the United States, the Soviet Union and China.