MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th June, 2023) India's lunar exploration mission Chandrayaan-3 with a rover will be launched between July 12 and 19, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Sreedhara Somanath said Wednesday.
"Currently, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is fully integrated. We have completed the testing and also mated with the rocket compartment ... Currently, the window of opportunity for launch is between July 12 and 19 and we will take the earliest possible date, maybe the 12th, maybe the 13th or maybe the 14th. We will announce the exact date after all the tests are completed," the ISRO chairman told the Ani news agency.
The launch of the mission was initially scheduled for 2020 and then was postponed to the first half of 2021, and then was rescheduled to August 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reforms in the space sector of India and the introduction of new models.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission is planned to correct possible mistakes made during the launch of the previous Chandrayaan-2 mission.
The Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was put into lunar orbit on August 20, 2019. As part of the mission, the Vikram lander was supposed to target a patch of high ground between two craters called Simpelius N and Manzinus C. The lander attempted a soft landing on the lunar surface but lost contact with the ground station in September for yet unknown reasons.
The Chandrayaan-2 was India's second lunar exploration mission, following the Chandrayaan-1 mission that was sent to the Moon in 2008. If the third launch is successful, the mission will make India the fourth state to claim a presence on the Moon after the United States, Russia and China.
