what is isro chandrayaan 3

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, and to demonstrate rover roving on the moon. It consists of a lander and rover configuration, and will be launched by LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration till 100 km lunar orbit. The lander payloads include 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. A passive Laser Retroreflector Array from NASA is accommodated for lunar laser ranging studies. The rover is designed to deploy a smaller, 26-kg lunar rover. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed on the lunar surface on August 23, 2023, and successfully completed its primary goals of technology demonstrations and data collection mainly focused on analyzing the composition of the moon’s soil and super-thin atmosphere.