Chandrayaan 3 lander and rover, India's lunar mission to replace Chandrayaan 2's lander/rover Options

[Phil Stooke]

I am starting a new thread for this mission which should fly this year.

Phil

[Thorsten Denk]

Not long ago there was the info that the launch had slipped to 2023.
But then it was told "August 2022".
Let's wait and see...

Thorsten

[Ohsin]

New payload inclusion, it would be mounted atop propulsion module.

The propulsion module will carry the lander till lunar orbit insertion and deployment of lander. After that, the module will be utilised for science payload operations

The propulsion module is configured to carry a science payload to observe Earth from the lunar orbit.

SHAPE: Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth onboard Chandrayaan-3

SHAPE is an experiment on-board Chandrayaan-3 Mission for the study of spectropolarimetric signatures of the habitable planet Earth in the near-Infrared (NIR) wavelength range (1 – 1.7 µm). The spectro-polarimeter is mounted on the Propulsion Module (PM) of Chandrayaan-3 mission. The payload will observe full-disc Earth from a distant vantage point, Moon, in order to ‘mimic’ Earth-like Exo-planets.

SHAPE is being designed with two packages:

(1) Electro-optical Detector System (EODS)

(2) Radio Frequency Source (RFS).

https://cosparhq.cnes.fr/assets/uploads/202..._compressed.pdf

[Phil Stooke]

Very interesting. Thanks for keeping us informed.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Chandrayaan 3 may be slipping to the end of 2023 (or just beyond). Here is an LPSC abstract on landing sites with 8 candidates.

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2023/pdf/1037.pdf

Phil

[Holder of the Tw...]

In that abstract, I am really confused by the labeling of some of the landing sites on the lunar picture as compared to the latitudes listed in the adjoining table.

[Phil Stooke]

They are all negative latitudes (i.e. south latitudes) - look closely and you will see the negative signs. I have not mapped those points yet but I didn't notice a problem on a first read.

Site 5 is the Chandrayaan 2 site.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Ok... I was wrong in my previous post. Sorry about that. I looked at the maximum and minimum ranges of latitude and longitude in the table and on the map and they were essentially the same. But now I am mapping them I find that the site numbers do not match between the table and the map. For instance, site 1 in the table seems to be site 8 on the map. The numbering doesn't match the ranking either.

Here is a map with the numbers from the table in red.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

I think I have tracked down the source of the discrepancy. This abstract from the 2021 LPSC:

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2021/pdf/1396.pdf

shows exactly the same map but refers to the sites as areas of interest and discusses mapping them using the OHRC camera on Chandrayaan 2.

I think that the new abstract uses a renumbered list of landing site candidates but repeats the old map without updating it.

Phil

[Ohsin]

We have seen flurry of testing related updates recently.

https://www.isro.gov.in/Flight_Acceptance_H...LVM3-M4_C3.html
https://www.isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan3_EMI_EMC_Test.html
https://www.isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan_3_Modul...amic_Tests.html

ISRO Chairman is still sticking with June-end/July 2023 launch. @1m48s in following.

https://www.theweek.in/videos/video-feature...2377122112.html

[Phil Stooke]

https://blog.jatan.space/p/moon-monday-issue-120

The very useful blog by Jatan Mehta contains an interesting update about Chandrayaan 3. A presentation at a recent conference (too bad we don't have public abstracts!) gave the backup landing site for the mission. It's not, as one might have suspected, one of the eight sites discussed above. It is further west, at 69.49° S, 17.33° W. This is close to the backup site for Chandrayaan 2's lander Vikram.

On that subject... will this lander be Vikram 2 or will it get a new name? Will its rover be Pragyan 2 or will it get a new name? We should know fairly soon.

Phil

[Ohsin]

Chandrayaan-3 launch is scheduled in mid-july. (might be 12 July per someone on the inside)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sc...w/100322580.cms

to meet the mid-July window for the launch of India’s third lunar mission, has begun the process of final assembly of payloads at the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in Bengaluru.

https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/nationa...ndrayaan-3.html

"Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled in July second week," a senior official of the Bengaluru-headquartered national space agency under the Department of Space told PTI on Thursday.

[Ohsin]

More on tentative schedule from ex-ISRO official.

https://twitter.com/DrPVVenkitakri1/status/...160144972587009

Dear India,
Stay tuned for Chandrayan 3 launch by my dear GSLV MK3 on July 12th and touchdown on August 23rd .
Mark the date and calendar.
Be glued to your TVs to cheer up!

EDIT: Tweet has been deleted so here is a report quoting ISRO official

https://pressreader.com/article/281616719731185

While Isro did not officially confirm the dates, a senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the project is moving on track.

“The project is right on track, and the way things are moving, the launch is expected to be on July 12,” the official said.

“The lunar touchdown is likely on August 23,” the official said.

[Phil Stooke]

I have made maps showing my current understanding of the Chandrayaan 3 landing sites. The first map shows the two candidates (larger circles) discussed in 2021, the 8 candidates from earlier this year and the site chosen for the landing, as well as the site of the Vikram crash from Chandrayaan 2. The second map shows the alternative site and the alternative for Chandrayaan 2.

If anyone has any corrections especially for the Hindi names I will be pleased to get them. I have been looking for a map of the Moon labelled in Hindi or any other Indian language, but so far I have not been able to find anything. Tips would be appreciated.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Here is a version of the above map with the Luna 25 ellipse added. It looks like Luna 25 will launch 1 day after Chandrayaan 3 but will fly a more direct route and land about a month earlier.

Phil