New Delhi (EFE).- The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched this Friday its ambitious mission to explore the south pole of the Moon, Chandrayaan-3, a probe that is expected to land on the satellite between 23 and on August 24, after the failed moon landing four years ago.
As planned, the launch with the Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3) rocket took place at 2:35 p.m. (9:05 a.m. GMT) today from the center of Sriharikota in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, as shown live during the account. behind the ISRO.
The rocket will orbit the Earth before beginning the journey of 384,400 kilometers to the Moon, where it will go into orbit until the landing maneuver is carried out around August 23, the head of the ISRO, Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, explained yesterday.
The mass of the mission is 3,900 kilograms, and it will have the capacity to operate during one lunar day, equivalent to fourteen days on Earth.
The objective is to reach the unexplored south pole of the Moon, landing a probe on the surface with which to carry out scientific experiments and collect data.
If the probe manages to land intact on the rugged surface of the lunar south pole, India will become the fourth country to succeed in such a mission, a feat achieved so far only by Russia, the United States and China.
Mission improvements
This is India’s third lunar exploration mission, after the Asian nation launched its first space mission to the Moon in 2008, Chandrayaan-1, consisting of an orbiter that circled the satellite more than 3,400 times without landing between November 2008 and August 2009.
The probe discovered direct evidence of water on the Moon, and an analysis of measurements taken by Chandrayaan-1 with a NASA measuring instrument in 2018 confirmed multiple ice reservoirs in the permanently shadowed areas of the moon, according to the US agency.
ISRO already tried in 2019 to land a probe at the south pole of the Moon with its second mission, Chandrayaan-2, but the mission failed when it crashed due to technical problems in the reduction of speed when landing.
To improve on its predecessor, the new probe has reinforced the legs of the lunar landing module, and has improved the software to have more tolerance for possible technical errors such as the one that could cause the failed moon landing in 2019.
The Department of Space of India (DoS), responsible for ISRO, has a budget this year of about 1,500 million dollars compared to 26,000 million for NASA, limited resources that have not prevented the Indian organization from winning freehand a favorable reputation.