ISRO plans to launch Chandrayaan-3, their third mission to the moon, in June next year with a more powerful lunar rover on board, which will be crucial for inter-continental expeditions. future planet.
The space agency has also arranged the first test flight of the ‘abort mission’ for Gaganyaan, the country’s first manned flight, early next year.
“Chandrayaan-3 (C-3) will launch next June on the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3),” Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman S Somnath when interacting with media staff on the sidelines at an event.
He said ISRO plans to fly India astronaut into orbit by the end of 2024 after successful abort missions and inactive test flights.
India’s first attempt to land a rover on the moon ended in failure after the Vikram lander aboard Chandrayaan-2 crashed on the lunar surface in September 2019.
Somnath said: “The C-3 is ready. It’s not a copy of the C-2. The rover is already there.
“There are many changes. The impact pins are stronger. It will have better instrumentation. In case something fails, something else will take its place,” the ISRO president said.
He said drivers will also have different methods of calculating altitude, identifying non-hazardous locations and having better software.
On board the Gaganyaan human flight, Somnath said ISRO will make six test flights before actually putting the humans into orbit.
Somnath said preparations for the Gaganyaan mission are progressing at a “slow and steady pace”.
“This is the right way to say it. It’s a very complex task. We can’t boast about it. It requires going through very important steps,” he said.
Gaganyaan’s first crewless flight will come after two aborted missions to demonstrate that the space agency is capable of rescuing the crew in the event of any eventuality.
The first abort mission could be performed in crosstalk when the spacecraft is traveling at the speed of sound after reaching an altitude of 10-15 kilometers, Somnath said.
The latter would require the ability to rescue the crew demonstrated when spaceship traveling at twice the speed of sound and in “not very good” aerodynamics.
As part of the abort mission, space scientists will have to steer the crew away from the launch vehicle using an economizer system, land the crew capsule into the water, and collect it.
“If this is successful, we will repeat it again and then we will do an unmanned mission. The unmanned mission will be a full-fledged rocket. It will go into orbit. , then it will come back,” Somnath said.
“We will repeat the abort missions two more times, then another unmanned mission,” he said, adding that human spaceflight would take place if these six test flights successful.
