A team of scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) visited the Tirupati Venkatachalapathy Temple on Thursday morning with a miniature model of Chandrayaan-3 to pray for its success tomorrow.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission is slated to be launched at 2.35 pm (IST) onboard a Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LVM3) from the Sriharikota spaceport on July 14.
This milestone event will position India as the fourth nation to successfully land its spacecraft on the moon's surface and showcase the country's expertise in executing safe and gentle landings on the lunar terrain.
In preparation for the mission, the ISRO has conducted a comprehensive 24-hour "launch rehearsal," meticulously simulating the complete launch preparation and process.
A follow-up mission after the crash-landing of Chandrayaan-2 in September 2019 due to a software glitch, the Chandrayaan-3 aims to land softly on the lunar surface and explore it with a rover.
According to ISRO Chairman S Somanath, while Chandrayaan-2 had a success-based design, Chandrayaan-3 has a failure-based one.
“We expanded the area of landing from 500m x 500m to four km by 2.5 km. It can land anywhere, so it doesn’t limit you to target a specific point. It will target a specific point only in nominal conditions. So, if the performance is poor, it can land anywhere within that area,” Somanath told Indian media.