Chandrayaan-3 in final approach to lunar orbit, covers two-third distance to Moon

India's third Lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 has covered 2/3rd the distance to the moon and is expected to be captured by the Lunar gravitational influence by 7:00pm (IST), Saturday evening. The next crucial manoeuvre for the craft will be a Lunar Orbit Insertion, where the craft gets captured by Lunar gravitational influence and begins to orbit the moon. "The (Chandrayaan-3) spacecraft has covered about two-thirds of the distance to the moon. Lunar Orbit Injection (LOI) set for Aug 5, 2023, around 19:00 Hrs. IST," ISRO tweeted.

In the late hours of July 31st, the craft performed Trans-Lunar injection (TLI), a long-duration firing of its engines and began a journey that pushed it out of Earth's gravitational influence and towards Lunar gravitational influence. "By firing its engines for the TLI, the craft gained departure velocity and set course from the earth orbit towards a location in the vicinity of the moon. At present, the craft is travelling from Earth to the vicinity of the moon and at the designated time it will rendezvous with the moon," Dr Mylswamy Annadurai (Retd), Former Director of India's UR Rao Satellite Centre, told WION.

Explaining the upcoming Lunar Orbit insertion, he said, "During the Lunar orbit insertion, the craft will reach the vicinity of the moon and within the Lunar gravitational influence. Thereafter, it would fire its onboard engines to slow itself down and get captured into Lunar orbit. Then, it would begin to circle the moon in a highly-elliptical orbit". Having contributed majorly towards India's maiden Lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, as its Project Director, Dr Annadurai earned the moniker 'Moon Man of India'.

Initially, to escape from Earth orbit, Chandrayaan-3 sequentially slingshot itself into orbits farther and farther from the Earth and eventually performed the TLI burn. After being captured in Lunar orbit on Saturday, the craft would perform engine burns that would get it into orbits that gradually move closer to the moon. This is a process followed in preparation for the eventual Lunar soft-landing that ISRO has planned for 23rd August at 5:47pm (IST) Indian standard time.

Chandrayaan-3 is expected to make a soft landing near the Lunar south pole at around 70 degrees latitude. Performing a successful Lunar soft landing would make India the fourth nation to do so, after Russia, the USA and China. The 3.9ton Lunar spacecraft was launched into earth orbit on 14th July, by India's heaviest rocket LVM3 and marked the seventh successive successful flight of the rocket. The Chandrayaan-3 Lunar lander (including rover) weighs 1750kgs, whereas the rover weighs 26kgs. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft carries a total of six payloads that are mounted on the propulsion module, the lander and the rover.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE