India’s ISRO Announces Successful Completion Of Chandrayaan-3 Testing
New Delhi, 28th June 2023: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has set a launch window for Chandrayaan-3, its third lunar exploration mission, to take place between July 12 and 19. ISRO Chief S Somnath announced that the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is fully integrated and testing has been completed. The exact launch date will be announced once all tests are finalized.
ISRO states that Chandrayaan-3 builds upon the achievements of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, with the primary objective of demonstrating the full extent of its capabilities in terms of secure lunar landing and surface exploration. Similar to Chandrayaan-2, Chandrayaan-3 will consist of a lander and a rover, but will not include an orbiter. The launch will be facilitated by the LVM3 vehicle from SDSC SHAR in Sriharikota. The propulsion module has been specifically engineered to transport the lander and rover configuration through the lunar orbit, covering a distance of 100 km.
Notably, the propulsion module of Chandrayaan-3 will carry the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload, enabling the study of Earth’s spectral and polarimetric measurements from the lunar orbit.
