When will Chandrayaan-3 start, reach the Moon? What's the cost, special about the mission? Here are answers

As the final countdown for the Chandrayaan-3 starts today, all eyes are set on scientists looking after the launch of Chandrayaan-3. India's latest Moon mission will put the country in an elite club of nations that successfully accomplished soft landing on the lunar surface and explored it with a rover.

Four years after the unsuccessful attempt of Chadrayaan-2, a successful soft landing will make India the fourth country, after the US, Russia, and China to achieve the feat. The missions from Israel and India crash-landed in 2019 while the spacecraft carrying a lander-rover from Japan and a rover from UAE failed in 2022. ISRO scientists have improved the lander's design after a series of tests.

Here are some of the important facts about Chandrayaan-3.

When will the Chandrayaan-3 be launched?
The Chandrayaan-3 will blast off on July 14 from Sriharikota space station in Andhra Pradesh.

What is the cost of Chandrayaan-3?
The Chandrayaan-3 is built on a budget of just under Rs 615 crore or $75 million.

What is the rocket launcher of Chandrayaan-3?
The 43.5 metre tall rocket, 'Fat boy' LVM3-M4, is scheduled for the lift off from the second launch pad at 2.35 pm.

The largest and heaviest LVM3 rocket (formerly GSLV MkIII), fondly called as 'fat boy' by ISRO scientists for its heavylift capability, has completed six consecutive successful missions.

The LVM3 rocket is a composite of three modules -- propulsion, lander and rover (which is housed inside the lander). While the first rocket's first stage is powered by solid fuel, the second stage is by liquid fuel and the third and final stage consists of a cryogenic engine powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

What will happen after the launch vehicle's lift off?
According to scientists, just over 16 minutes into its flight, the rocket will eject the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft at an altitude of about 179 km. The spacecraft would orbit the earth for about 5-6 times in an elliptical cycle with 170 km closest and 36,500 km farthest from earth moving towards the lunar orbit.

The propulsion module along with the lander, after gaining speed would proceed for an over a month long journey towards reaching the orbit of the moon until it goes 100 km above the lunar surface.

When will Chandrayaan-3 reach moon?
After that, the Chandrayaan-3 will begin its own long moon journey of about 3.84 lakh km. The lander carried by the spacecraft is expected to make a soft-landing on the moon on August 23 or 24. After reaching the desired position, the lander module would begin its descent for a soft landing on the south pole region of the moon.

The moon's south pole region has been chosen because the Lunar South Pole remains much larger than that at the North pole. There could be a possibility of presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it.

The reason to fix the launch window during the month of July similar to Chandrayaan-2 mission (July 22, 2019) is because the earth and moon would be closer to each other during this part of the year.

What is special about Chandrayaan-3??
The significance about Chandrayaan-3 mission, unlike its unsuccessful predecessor, is that the Propulsion Module has a payload -- SHAPE -- Spectro- polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth which is to study earth from lunar orbit.

ISRO said the SHAPE is an experimental payload to study the spectro-polarimetric signatures of the Earth in the near-infrared wavelength range.

Apart from the SHAPE payload, the Propulsion Module's main function is to carry the Lander Module from launch vehicle injection orbit to till lander separation.

The lander module after landing on the surface of the moon has payloads including RAMBHA-LP which is to measure the near surface plasma ions and electrons density and its changes, ChaSTE Chandra's Surface Thermo Physical Experiment -- to carry out the measurements of thermal properties of lunar surface near polar region and ILSA (Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity) to measure seismicity around the landing site and delineating the structure of the lunar crust and mantle.

The Rover, after the soft-landing, would come out of the lander module and study the surface of the moon through its payloads APXS - Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer - to derive the chemical composition and infer mineralogical composition to further enhance understanding of lunar surface.

Rover, which has a mission life of 1 lunar day (14 Earth days), also has another payload Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) to determine the elemental composition of lunar soil and rocks around the lunar landing site.

What are the stages of Chandrayaan-3?
The Indian space agency said, the moon mission is divided into three phases - the earth centric phase (Pre-Launch, Launch and Ascent and Earth-bound Manoeuvre), the Lunar Transfer Phase (Transfer Trajectory) and the Moon Centric Phase (Lunar Orbit Insertion Phase, Moon-bound Manoeuvre Phase, Propulsion Module and Lunar Module Separation, De-boost Phase, Pre-landing Phase, Landing Phase, Normal Phase for Lander and Rover, Moon Centric Normal Orbit Phase (100 km circular orbit) for Propulsion Module).

When did Chandrayaan failed?
The Chandrayaan-3 will be launched almost four years after the Chandrayaan-2, whose lander Vikram and rover Pragyaan crashed on the Moon's surface in the early hours of September 7, 2019, partially failed.