Chandrayaan-3 will explore geophysical characteristics of moon

ISRO Chairman S Somnath said the agency took nearly a year to study what went wrong with Chandrayaan-2.

Besides making a soft landing on the lunar surface, Chandrayaan-3 is aimed at studying the south pole of the moon which has not been explored by other nations and exploring the geophysical and chemical characteristics on the surface of the moon.

ISRO Chairman S Somnath said the space agency chose the south pole as the landing point of the spacecraft for the above reasons and also to conduct the thermal characteristics of the moon.

“We are aiming for all the geophysical, chemical characteristics on the surface of the moon. Secondly, the study of the south pole has still not been explored (by countries which have landed on the moon in the past. And nobody has conducted the thermal characteristics on the surface of the moon. ISRO would be doing that in this mission,” he said.

“It all depends on the data we get,” Somnath added.

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The south-polar region of the moon is of intense interest due to the presence of many permanently shadowed craters which could contain water ice and precious minerals. The rover payloads study composition of the moon’s surface using X-rays and LASER, while the propulsion module payload will explore the Spectro-polarimetric signatures of the habitable planet, Earth.

Answering questions on how the ISRO prepared for Chandrayaan-3 within four years of the failure of the previous mission, Somnath said the agency took nearly a year to study what went wrong with Chandrayaan-2.

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“The next year went into discussions on the corrections to be made to the next mission and what more can be added to Chandrayaan-3. Next was a series of review meetings and several tests before the final assembly of the space crafts. There was a lot of mental agony, and we had so many people to review the progress and after 100s of tests, we came here,” he added.

To another question, Somnath said the agency may plan a sequel to Chandrayaan-3 but everything will depend on the final results of the mission.

The ISRO chief also defended the agency’s decision not to send an orbiter as part of Chandrayaan-3 saying the orbiter which was part of the previous mission is still working. He also said the high-resolution images sent by Chandrayaan-2 helped the scientists design the latest mission and expand the area for the soft landing.

Mission Director Mohan Kumar said with the successful launch of Chandrayaan-3, LVM3-M4 has proved to be the country’s “most reliable” launch vehicle. The launch makes LVM3-M4 the best vehicle to launch Gaganyaan, India’s manned mission to space, which is in the works.

On the proposed Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) mission involving India and Japan, the ISRO Chairman said no proposal has been sent to the government as several challenges are involved. “We are still talking to them (Japan) and we are yet to arrive at a conclusion. We have to bring down the mass propulsion and we cannot use the engine that we used in Chandrayaan-3. The process is going on,” he added.