Chandrayaan 3 Mission

Context:

India is likely to launch its third mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-3, in the third quarter of 2022.

Concept:

About Chandrayaan 3 Mission:

The Chandrayaan-3 mission has been planned as only a lander-rover mission to demonstrate India’s capability of soft landing on a celestial body.
It will communicate with Earth via the existing orbiterfrom Chandrayaan-2 whose lifespan has been estimated to be seven years.
The mission was announced just a few months after the Vikram lander aboard Chandrayaan-2 mission crash-landed on the lunar surface just 2.1 km from its goal in September 2019.
The realisation of Chandrayaan-3 involves various processes, including finalisation of configuration, subsystem realisation (manufacturing), integration, spacecraft-level detailed testing and a number of special tests to evaluate the systems performance on Earth.

Chandrayaan program:

Chandrayaan-1 was the first Indian lunar probe under the Chandrayaan program.
It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, and operated until August 2009.
The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor.
India launched the spacecraft using a PSLV-XL rocket.
India was the fourth country to place its flag insignia on the Moon.
The location of impact was named Jawahar Point.
Goals:
- High-resolution mineralogical and chemical imaging of the permanently shadowed north- and south-polar regions
- Searching for surface or subsurface lunar water-ice, especially at the lunar poles
Due to technical issues Chandrayaan-1 stopped communicating in August 2009 and ISRO officially declared that the mission was over. Chandrayaan-1 operated for 312 days as opposed to the intended two years, but the mission achieved most of its scientific objectives.
Findings:
- The recent images sent by Chandrayaan-1 suggest that the moon may be rusting along the poles. Data sent indicates the presence of hematite at the lunar poles.

Chandrayan-2:

Chandrayaan-2 is India’s first lander mission.
It consists of an Orbiter, Lander and Rover, all equipped with scientific instruments to study the moon.
Chandrayaan-2 was planned to make a landing at a site where no earlier mission had gone, i.e near the South pole of the moon.
However, a part of the mission failed as the Vikram lander crash-landed on the lunar surface.
A successful landing would have made India the fourth country in the world to do so after the US, the erstwhile USSR and China, and the first country to have landed so close to the lunar South Pole.