Chandrayaan-3 leaves earth's orbit. Next stop moon: ISRO

India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has completed its orbits around the earth and is now heading towards the moon after it was successfully injected into the translunar orbit, the Indian Space Research Organisation said on Tuesday.

"Chandrayaan-3 completes its orbits around the earth and heads towards the moon. A successful perigee-firing performed at ISTRAC, ISRO has injected the spacecraft into the translunar orbit," it said.

"Next stop: the Moon. As it arrives at the moon, the Lunar-Orbit Insertion (LOI) is planned for August 5, 2023," ISRO added in a tweet.



Translunar orbit injection is the process whereby the moon-bound spacecraft has escaped from orbiting the earth and is now following a path that would take it to the vicinity of the Moon. In other words, the spacecraft began its journey towards the Moon on Tuesday, after leaving the Earth's orbit following the TLI maneuver, which placed it on 'lunar transfer trajectory'.

ISRO said it would attempt soft landing of the lander on the lunar surface on August 23.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission to Moon was launched on July 14. The spacecraft comprises a propulsion module (weighing 2,148 kg), a lander (1,723.89 kg) and a rover (26 kg).

The main object of the mission is to safely land the lander on the lunar soil.

Once it reaches the lunar orbit, the lander will get separated from the propulsion module and is expected to make a soft-landing near the South Pole of the moon on August 23 evening at 5.47 p.m.

The lander will descend to the moon from a height of about 100 km from the moon's surface.

The soft landing is a tricky issue as it involves a series of complex manoeuvres consisting of rough and fine braking.

Imaging of the landing site region prior to landing will be done for finding safe and hazard-free zones.

Subsequent to the soft landing, the six-wheeled rover will roll out and carry out experiments on the lunar surface for a period of one lunar day which is equal to 14 earth days.

With agency inputs