ISRO prepares to launch Chandrayaan-3 in 2021

Sept. 8: India’s Moon mission successor—Chandrayaan-3 may be launched somewhere in early 2021, as per the announcement from the Minister of State for the Department of Space, Jitendra Singh on Sunday. India’s next mission to Moon will include a rover and a lander but not an orbiter like its predecessor. The 3rd lunar mission was earlier scheduled for 2020. However, the ongoing pandemic and the lockdown imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus has halted many of Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) preparations for Chandrayaan 3.

ISRO scientists will also be considering incorporating improvements that experts have suggested after analysing what went wrong in the previous mission. One such priority could be ‘strengthening the legs of the lander’ so as to improve its chances of survival in the event of another crash.

Aimed at the Moon’s South Pole, Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22, 2019.On September 7, 2019, the lander Vikram crashed on the surface while attempting a soft-land on the Earth’s only natural satellite Moon. As per ISRO, the lander’s trajectory began to deviate at about 2.1 km above the lunar surface, and the mission control subsequently lost all communication with the lander. The agency failed to re-establish the contact despite persistent efforts for several weeks.