As it inches closer to the moon, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday released riveting images of its surface captured by a camera on the Chandrayaan-3 Lander Module (LM).
This comes after the LM — comprising the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover — successfully set its course for landing on the moon on August 23 to 14.
The set of visuals, were taken after the Lander Module got separated from the Propulsion Module of the spacecraft on Thursday.
The pictures, released by ISRO on X (formerly Twitter), show the craters on the Moon’s that were marked on the photographs released by ISRO as ‘Fabry’, ‘Giordano Bruno’ and ‘Harkhebi J’.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:???? as captured by theLander Position Detection Camera (LPDC)on August 15, 2023#Chandrayaan_3#Ch3 pic.twitter.com/nGgayU1QUS
— ISRO (@isro) August 18, 2023
These images were captured on two days, first by the Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC) on August 15 and second by the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1 on August 17.
Where is it heading?
The Lander Module will on Friday be lowered to an orbit that will take it closer to the Moon’s surface for the soft landing on the Lunar south pole on August 23.
Vikram Lander is set to undergo a significant deboosting manoeuver on Friday. The manoeuvre — scheduled for 4 pm — comes a day after the lander successfully separated from the Propulsion Module.
The LM is ready to be lowered to an orbit that will take the mission closer to moon. The landing on the moon’s south pole is scheduled at 5:47 pm on August 23.
Health ‘normal’
ISRO in its latest update said that the LM is in ‘normal’ health and has successfully undergone a deboosting operation.
“LM successfully underwent a deboosting operation that reduced its orbit to 113 km x 157 km. The second deboosting operation is scheduled for August 20, 2023, around 0200 Hrs. IST,” the space agency said
Chandrayaan-3, the third mission in India’s lunar exploration series, began its journey on July 14 this year and successfully entered lunar orbit on August 5. It is meticulously adjusting its orbit in preparation for a soft landing attempt within 40 days of launch.
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