Chandrayaan-3 Shares Footage Of How The Moon Looked Like Prior To Landing. WATCH

Chandrayaan-3 has shared a video of how the Moon looked like before the spacecraft made its historic touchdown on August 23, 2023, at 6:04 pm IST.

Chandrayaan-3 has shared a video of how the Moon looked like before the spacecraft made its historic touchdown on August 23, 2023, at 6:04 pm IST. Chandrayaan-3, the Indian Space Research Organisation's third lunar exploration mission, softly landed on the lunar south pole, making India the first country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon's south pole. Chandrayaan-3's powered descent towards the lunar surface began after the automatic landing sequence was initiated. ISRO has shared several images of how the Moon looked like before touchdown, and also an image of the landing site.

On Thursday, ISRO said in a mission update that all of Chandrayaan-3’s activities are on schedule, and all systems are normal. Most of the payloads of Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander have been turned on, the rover mobility operations have commenced, and the SHAPE payload on the propulsion module is also functioning properly. 

The Pragyan rover successfully rolled out of the Vikram lander about four hours after the historic touchdown, when all the lunar dust had settled down. 

Both the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover are expected to operate on the Moon for 14 Earth days. The two spacecraft will conduct experiments analysing the elemental and mineralogical composition of the lunar surface, understanding seismic activity at the Moon's south pole, and exploring the plasma environment.

ISRO Chief S Somanath said Thursday that Chandrayaan-3 faced a number of challenges on the Moon, including the fact that the absence of an atmosphere around the Moon increased the chances of Chandrayaan-3 hitting a region different from the south pole. Also, there was a thermal issue and a problem of communication blackout.

Somanath also said that ISRO will conduct a robotic planning exercise in order to prepare for India's first human spaceflight mission. He also said that Aditya-L1, India's first space-based solar mission, is scheduled to be launched in September this year. The first leg of the Gaganyaan programme, which will be an uncrewed test flight, is likely to be launched in late August or early September.