Chandrayaan-3 Won't Just Study Moon, Could Help Find Life On Other Planets
NDTV
Chandrayaan-3 is scheduled to launch on Friday and the lander is expected to soft-land on the lunar surface around the end of August.
A lot can happen in a day. And when it's a lunar day - equivalent to 14 Earth days - the possibilities expand. This is what Chandrayaan-3's lander and rover will seek to capitalise on in their short mission life of one lunar day when they make it to the surface of the Moon around the end of next month.
Loaded with instruments, the lander and rover will study the surface and atmosphere of the Moon. The orbiter - which was not supposed to have any payload - will turn its focus to Earth to look at signatures of life on the Pale Blue Dot so that it can aid in the search of exoplanets (planets beyond the solar system) that may support life.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath said that the instruments on the lander and rover will be the same as the ones on their predecessors, which were part of Chandrayaan-2. The names of the lander and rover - Vikram and Pragyan - are also the same as the previous mission, in which some of the objectives could not be met because of a hard landing.
