Chandrayaan 3: Vikram Lander Module Enters Deboosting Stage. Health Normal, Says ISRO

The lander will now perform two orbital-reduction manoeuvres over the next five days before making its final down on the lunar surface on August 23, at around 5:47 p.m.

Chandrayaan 3 was successfully launched on July 14 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota. ( Image Source :Twitter/@isro )

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on August 18 that Vikram, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, has successfully begun its deboosting procedure. The lander will now perform two orbital-reduction manoeuvres over the next five days before making its final down on the lunar surface on August 23, at around 5:47 p.m.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
The Lander Module (LM) health is normal.

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 #Chandrayaan_3#Ch3 pic.twitter.com/0PVxV8Gw5z

— ISRO (@isro) August 18, 2023

The initial orbital manoeuvre will place Vikram in a circular orbit 100x100 kilometres above the Moon. This will be followed by another, which will strategically place it in the last orbit at a height of 100x30 kilometres above the lunar surface, from which it will begin its final fall on August 23.

On August 17, Chandrayaan-3's lander module, which included the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, separated from the propulsion module in a controlled separation. The lander module has a mass of 1,752 kilograms, and a power generation capacity of 738 Watts. The Vikram lander’s payloads are Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA), Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) Rover, and Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA). 

At 2:35 p.m. on July 14, the spacecraft was successfully launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota.

Chandrayaan 3 will conduct in-depth research on the Moon's exosphere, charting its composition and fluctuations. This information will be useful in understanding the Moon's development and interactions with solar winds.

Chandrayaan-3 consists of a lander, a rover, and a propulsion module. The rover is fitted inside the lander, and together, they are called the lander module. The propulsion module carried the lander module to a 100-kilometre circular lunar orbit, and then separated.