India's upgraded 'Bahubali' rocket is standing tall on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota waiting to loft India's Chandrayaan-3 satellite towards the moon. It is an important experiment to master soft landing on a celestial body and if all goes well then the third lunar journey by India will begin on Friday (July 14) at 2.35 pm.
In Indian folklore, the moon is often referred to as 'chanda mama' - the loving uncle and in other cultures, Artemis is personification of the moon as a female goddess. Mission Chandrayaan is India's indigenous effort to access moon, Artemis Program is America's effort to go back to the moon in the 21st century. It may come as a surprise but India's Chandrayaan-1 in 2008, it seems, stirred the US from its almost 50 year lunar slumber, and the ambitious Artemis Program was born in 2018.
Chandrayaan-3 is India's third mission to the moon and a satellite weighing 3921 kilograms will be lofted on its long, nearly four lakh kilometre, journey. The upgraded 'Bahubali' rocket, now renamed Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LM-3), weighs 642 tons, which is equal to the combined weight of about 130 full grown Asian elephants. It is a humongous rocket standing 43.5 meters tall, which is more than half the height of the Qutub Minar which is 72 meters tall.
This will be the sixth flight of the rocket which has a one hundred per cent success rate till datw. Hence, hopes are high for the successful lift off from India's space port.
Chandrayaan-3 is essentially a bold scientific mission with an objective to successfully demonstrate soft landing near the south pole of the moon. It also carries seven scientific instruments, if India succeeds it will become the fourth country after Russia, USA and China to soft land on the moon, said Mr S Somanath, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
The SUV sized satellite is essentially a large propulsion module which will nudge the Vikram Lander and Pragyaan Rover to the lunar orbit. If all goes as per the plan, the earliest the lunar landing could be attempted will be on August 23.
India hopes to carry out analysis of the lunar soil, rove around the moon surface, also log moon quakes.
More importantly, if Chandrayaan-3 succeeds, we may see the first Indian selfies from the lunar surface showing India's flag on the moon surface since both the Indian robots Vikram and Pragyaan carry imprints of India's tricolour. Both have suitably placed cameras in this new era of social media.
India first attempted a mission to the moon in 2008 with Chandrayaan-1 which was an orbiter, it died about half way into the mission but it came back with the globally startling finding that the moon is not a parched desert. Chandrayaan-1 discovered the presence of water molecules on the moon. It changed the geological history of the moon once and for all and has opened up the tantalizing possibility of human habitation outside the Earth.
It was this finding which made the US and NASA wake up from their nearly fifty-year-old lunar slumber. Chandrayaan-1 was also a mission imprinted with national pride, here India was the captain and all others - US, Great Britain and the European Space Agency - were players as India exited the embrace of the Earth's gravity for the first time.
In 2019, as a follow up mission, India attempted Chandrayaan-2. Here an orbiter, a lander and rover were lofted to the moon. The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is an unmitigated success and continues to successfully orbit the moon. Unfortunately the Vikram lander with the Pragyaan rover in its womb crash landed on the lunar surface minutes before it was to touchdown.
Dr M Annadurai, the then head of the Chandrayaan program at ISRO said an under-tested machine was sent to the moon and one big reason attributed to the failure is the late introduction of the fifth engine on the lander.
There were also software glitches in the navigation and approach autonomous computer programs. Mr Somanath said, "The confidence level for soft landing is very high as Vikram lander has been made more robust and several of the parameters that could lead to failure have been suitably addressed".
Dr Annadurai said in Chandrayaan-2, the Vikram lander did not undergo rigorous "hot testing through real simulations". Mr Somanath said several test beds were created simulating the lunar surface and all "known unknowns have been addressed" but he cautions it still remains "rocket science" which has its inherent risks but confirms that the fifth middle engine has been jettisoned.
After India's soft lander crashed in 2019, Israel and Japan also attempted similar soft landings which ended in disappointments.
During the summit meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Joe Biden in Washington, India recently inked the Artemis Accords which are a set of non-binding regulations spearheaded by NASA as it embarks on its billions of dollar Artemis Program to send the first lady to the moon in over a year from now.
"Artemis Accords are good for India," said India's 'moon man' Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, who piloted India to moon and Mars from ISRO. He asserted, "India's signing of the Artemis Accords to partner in exploration of moon and Mars along with the US and others is a good step forward", adding international collaborative lunar exploration can't happen without India.
"India's flag is already on the South Pole of the moon," said Dr Annadurai.
As a consequence, Dr Annadurai said, it was India's frugal, below $100 million, moon mission which opened the eyes of NASA that had almost forgotten about the moon since 1972.
Sharing the excitement, Professor Carle Pieters, from the Brown University, US - the principal scientist credited for discovering the presence of water molecules on the moon surface using data provided by instruments flown on Chandrayaan-1 - said, "These are exciting times. The growing international science and exploration community recognises the moon has been our constant companion in this part of the solar system and always will be. I am sure the engineers, scientists, and students across India, ISRO who have dedicated their hearts and minds to move Chandrayaan-3 forward will be rewarded with new knowledge and understanding. I hope any surprises will be good ones."
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