what is chandrayaan3

Chandrayaan-3 is the third mission in the Chandrayaan program, a series of lunar-exploration missions developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) . It is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 and is aimed at demonstrating end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The spacecraft consists of a lander and rover configuration, and it was launched by LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota on July 14, 2023. The propulsion module carried the lander and rover configuration till 100 km lunar orbit and had a payload called Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) to study the spectral and Polari metric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit. The lander, called Vikram, has a mass of just over 1,700 kg and is designed to deploy a smaller, 26-kg lunar rover called Pragyan. The mission is aimed at the lunar south pole, a region with water ice that could be a source of oxygen, fuel, and water for future moon missions or a more permanent moon colony. The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover are equipped with science instruments designed to deepen our understanding of the Moon, including Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature, Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) for measuring the seismicity around the landing site, and Langmuir Probe (LP) to estimate the plasma density and its variations. Chandrayaan-3 completed a soft landing in the Moons south polar region on August 23, 2023, and is expected to remain functional for two weeks, running a series of experiments including a spectrometer analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface.