With its Chandrayaan 3 project, India wants to make a second attempt at landing on the moon, with a launch date set for August.
The Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan 2 mission crashed into the moon late in the landing phase in 2019, but the orbiter that accompanied it is still investigating the moon from afar. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) declared shortly after the impact that it planned to dispatch a successor mission to attempt the landing again.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic spread over the world, putting a stop to a variety of space missions as well as several of India's planned launches. The agency is now ready to set a new launch date for its return to the moon, aiming for August, just over three years after its predecessor launched.
"This time," space minister Jitendra Singh told the Times of India, "we will be more cautious. I should tell you that no country was successful in landing on the moon in the first attempt," Singh said in a statement on Feb. 2. "The U.S. could land on the moon after failing three times in the 1960s."
The ISRO's prudence has resulted in various design adjustments intended to boost Chandrayaan 3's chances of success in comparison to the failed Vikram lander. For example, unlike the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft, which is still orbiting the moon, the new mission will not feature a science-capable orbiter, according to ISRO chair S. In the same piece, Somanath told the Times of India.
"This orbiter won't be loaded with scientific instruments like the previous one," Somanath said. "Its job will only be confined to carry the lander to the moon, oversee the landing from its orbit and communicate between the lander and the Earth station."
According to the Times of India, the new lander would only have four engines, whereas the Vikram lander had a fifth engine added late in the design process. The landing legs of the second-generation lander will be slightly altered, and a sensor will be included to more correctly assess the lander's speed as it approaches the lunar surface.
According to SpaceNews, the Chandrayaan 3 project would launch from Satish Dhawan Space Center atop a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III rocket. The post-launch chronology has not yet been provided by ISRO; Chandrayaan 2 entered lunar orbit 30 days after launch and attempted landing 48 days later.
Chandrayaan 3 will land in the same area of the moon's south polar zone as Vikram did in 2019. If all goes well, India will become the fourth country after the United States, Russia, and China to soft-land on the moon, albeit none of them has yet landed at the ice-rich south pole.
