Chandrayaan-3 is essentially a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.

It consists of lander and rover configurations. The launch window opened on June 12. If successful, India will become the fourth country to achieve the remarkable feat of landing a spacecraft on the Moon’s surface. As the countdown to the big launch day begins, there is tremendous excitement across India about launching the lunar spacecraft.

S Somnath, head of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), says, “Essentially, Chandrayaan-3 is similar to Chandrayaan-2, with the same scientific architecture and mission objective.” During Chandrayaan 2, India’s previous lunar mission, the lander crash-landed during descent due to a technical failure, ending the mission in disappointment and tears.

Speaking at the India Today conclave, the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization explained that to understand the reason for the previous mission’s failure, ISRO underwent a process of cold stimulation.

As a successor to Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3 has undergone a few changes to increase the robustness of the lander. He said all these modifications have been subject to exhaustive ground tests and simulations through test beds.

While the equatorial front side of the Moon has been studied in great detail, and there is a wealth of information about lunar surface topography, gravity, albedo, and chemical and mineral composition, many gaps remain in our understanding of the Moon. A major gap is related to the lunar polar regions, which the earlier moon missions did not observe.