Chandrayaan-3 likely to be launched during third quarter of 2022: Jitendra Singh

'The realisation progress was hampered due to the Covid-19 pandemic,' he said

Hit by delays due to Covid-19, the government on Wednesday said the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission will likely be launched in the third quarter next year.

“Chandrayaan-3 is likely to be launched during the third quarter of 2022 assuming normal work flow henceforth,” Minister of State in the PMO Jitendra Singh told the Lok Sabha.

He said work on the lunar mission was hampered due to lockdowns forced by Covid-19 pandemic, but scientists had carried out works that were possible in the work-from-home mode.

“Chandrayaan-3 realisation resumed after commencement of unlock period and is in matured stage of realisation,” Singh said.

A follow-up mission of Chandrayaan-2, ISRO was planning to launch the mission, comprising a lunar lander and a rover, some time this year.

The realisation of Chandrayaan-3 involves various processes including finalisation of configuration, subsystems realisation, integration, spacecraft level detailed testing and a number of special tests to evaluate the system performance on earth.

Earlier, the government had told Parliament that the propulsion module has been realised and final testing was in progress.

ISRO scientists had also realised the Lander structure and it was being integrated with the propulsion system.

On July 22, 2019, India had launched Chandrayaan-2, which tried to land a rover on the Lunar South Pole. However, the lander Vikram hard-landed on September 7, 2019, crashing India's dream to become the first nation to successfully land on the lunar surface in its maiden attempt.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission hopes to fulfill the unfinished agenda and will carry only the lander and the rover and not the lunar orbiter which was part of the previous mission.