Chandrayaan-3 mission: All you need to know

NEW DELHI: Isro's ambitious third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3's Lander Module (LM) is all set to land on the lunar surface on Wednesday evening, as India eyes to become the first country to reach the uncharted south pole of Earth's only natural satellite.

Also See: Chandrayaan 3 News Live

Here are the key things to know about the moon landing:
Time of landingThe live telecast of the landing operations at MOX/ISTRAC began at 5.20pm, ahead of the scheduled touch-down of the lander with a rover in its belly near the south polar region around 6.04pm.


'Overall process may take 30 minutes'
Isro chairman S Somanath said that the overall process of landing may take around 30 minutes. “The exact timeline would depend on the systems and landing conditions. We have to decide whether to land at the first visible site or choose another safer spot based on hazard detection,” he said.



Vikram's function

The US, Russia and China have landed probes on the Moon, three of them in the southern latitudes, but India will be the first, if successful, to land close to the lunar south pole. Learning from the previous failure, Vikram this time has sturdier legs that can withstand landing velocities up to 10.8kmph. Isro said Vikram has been having a smooth sail.


After landing, Vikram will extend a ramp for Pragyan to roll out and explore the surface and start studies. Isro has packed Vikram and Pragyan with instruments. The lander and the rover are designed to function for one lunar day (14 Earth days).




Challenges
Among the landing challenges would be lunar dust. Firing onboard engines close to the surface results in backward flow of hot gases and dust. The hard, fine lunar dust has negative charge which makes it stick to surfaces and thereby interfere with deployment mechanisms including that of the solar panel.



Isro may postpone soft landing on Moon to Aug 27
According to ISRO Space Applications Centre Director Nilesh Desai, the focus of the scientists would be on reducing the speed of the spacecraft above the lunar surface.


"The lander will try to land on the Moon's surface from a height of 30km on August 23, and its velocity at that time will be 1.68 km per second. Our focus will be on reducing that speed because the Moon's gravitational force will also play its part," he told PTI in Ahmedabad.

Chandrayaan-3: How to watch livestream of soft landing, why moon mission is important and other details
"If we do not control that speed, there will be chances of a crash landing. If any health parameter (of the lander module) is found abnormal on August 23, then we will postpone the landing to August 27," he said.

Chandrayaan-3 lander module's soft landing on the lunar surface would put India in the elite club of countries that have reached the Moon's surface -- the United States, the erstwhile Soviet Union and China.