The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is planning to launch India’s third mission to the moon, Chandrayaan–3, which is going to be launched during the first half of 2021 instead of the earlier scheduled 2020 timeline. The previous mission crash-landed on Moon’s surface in September 2019.
India plans to launch Chandrayaan-3 by first half of 2021
Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday said, “The tentative launch schedule for Chandrayaan 3 is the first half of 2021.” Earlier this year, Singh had said that Chandrayaan 3 will come to fruition in 2020, but it appears that there has been a slight delay in the launch of India’s third moon mission.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had spent Rs 960 crore on the Chandrayaan 2 mission, but this time the mission is said to cost slightly less than the previous moon mission.
ISRO Chief K Sivan had previously told media, “As Chandrayaan 3 will have only a lander and rover, the lunar spacecraft will cost Rs 610 crore, including Rs 360 crore for the launch rocket.”
The mission has been configured based on the lessons learnt from Chadrayaan-2. Earlier, the ISRO Chairman K Sivan had said that Chandrayaan-3 would have a similar configuration to the Chandrayaan-2, which he described as the most complex mission attempted by ISRO.
The revised configuration takes care of the robustness in design and capacity enhancement for flexibility. ISRO had aimed to land on the south pole of Moon, on a spot that no other landing craft had reached before. ISRO will attempt to launch in the same area and would have a lander, rover and propulsion module like its predecessor.
