'I'm confident about success of Chandrayaan-3': Former ISRO director

BENGALURU: Former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director Dr Surendra Pal on Wednesday said that he is confident just like the ISRO scientists that the Chandrayaan-3 mission will do much better because of several changes made after the Chandrayaan 2.

Speaking to ANI, hours before the soft landing of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar module, Dr Surendra Pal, said, "I am confident just like the ISRO scientists that we will do much better because a lot of changes have been done as compared to Chandrayaan 2".

"...A lot of algorithms have been changed...Absolute calibration is done. The Lander has the capacity to hover. The landing area has been increased from 2.5 km to 4 km..." the former director of the space agency said. He said that more fuel has been put into the lander. "We are using Chandrayaan-2 orbiter. There are a lot of boulders and craters on the south pole of the moon. It is very rough," he said.

The scheduled timing for the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon’s south pole on August 23, 2023 (Wednesday), is around 18:04 IST, with the powered descent of Vikram lander expected at 1745 IST. The entire nation is on its toes with prayers on its lips and suspense building up after Russia's Luna-25 mission crashed on Sunday evening.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is attending the BRICS Summit in South Africa, will join the live telecast online. It has been a month and nine days since the ISRO launched the Chandrayaan-3 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on July 14. A GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle was used for the launch of the spacecraft that was placed in the lunar orbit on August 5 and since then it has been through a series of orbital manoeuvres been lowered closer to the moon’s surface.

The stated objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, rover moving on the moon's surface, and in-situ scientific experiments. If successful, India will join the elite club of nations of China, the United States and Russia to achieve this feat, but India will be the only country in the world to land on the lunar south pole. Chandrayaan-3’s development phase commenced in January 2020, with the launch planned sometime in 2021. However, the Covid-19 pandemic brought an unforeseen delay to the mission's progress.

The Chandrayaan-1 mission discovered the presence of water on the surface of the Moon, which was a new revelation for the world and even the premier Space agencies like the USA’s NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) were fascinated by this discovery and used the inputs for their further experiments.