Chandrayaan 3 and Aditya L1 will possibly be launched in middle of 2023, says ISRO chief

ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said the launch of Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar mission, and the first solar mission Aditya L1 will possibly happen by the middle of 2023.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S. Somanath on March 22, said the launch of Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar mission, and the first solar mission Aditya L1 will possibly happen by the middle of 2023.

He was delivering the inaugural talk on "Indian Capabilities for Space and Planetary Exploration" at the 4th Indian Planetary Science Conference organised at Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) here.

"The Chandrayaan-3 craft is fully ready. It is fully integrated. Of course, there is some correction work being done, and we are building a lot of confidence in the mission through lots of simulations and tests, etc. And possibly the launch can take place by the middle of this year," Mr. Somanath said.

He said Aditya-L1, India’s first solar mission, is going to be “a very unique solar observation capability for which instruments have already been delivered, and ISRO is in the process of integrating them in the satellite.

"I am also eagerly waiting for this (Aditya-L1) launch to happen, possibly by the middle of this year, and I am sure we will make this mission a great success," said Mr. Somanath, who is also Secretary of the Department of Space. According to ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. It consists of the Lander and Rover configuration.

Speaking on the Chandrayaan-3 mission, Mr. Somanath said it would have a similar structure as that of Chandrayaan-2, with the orbiter, a lander and a rover. "Of course, the orbiter is devoid of all those payloads that are there in Chandrayaan-2. It will have only a little bit of payload. But the primary objective is to take the lander to the orbit of the moon and make it land.

"The primary objective of Chandrayaan-3 is going to be a precise landing. For that, a lot of work is being done today, including building new instruments, building better algorithms, taking care of the failure modes, etc.," he said.