NEW DELHI, Aug 17: Going a step closer to a successful moon mission, the Chandrayaan-3’s lander ‘Vikram’ has on Thursday separated from spacecraft embarking on their respective journeys with Lander Module (LM) now expected to land on the moon on August 23.
“LM (Lander Module) is successfully separated from the Propulsion Module (PM). LM is set to descend to a slightly lower orbit upon a deboosting planned for tomorrow,” ISRO said in a tweet.
‘Thanks for the ride, mate! 
After separation, the lander is expected to undergo a “deboost” (the process of slowing down) to place it in an orbit where the Perilune (closest point to the Moon) is 30 kilometres and Apolune (farthest point from the Moon) is 100 km. From this orbit, the soft landing on the south polar region of the Moon will be attempted on August 23, ISRO has said.
The Chandrayaan-3 consists of a lander module, a propulsion module and a rover. The main function of the propulsion module was to carry the lander module from launch vehicle injection till 100-km orbit around the moon.
According to ISRO, “The lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified site on the lunar surface and deploy the rover, which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. The lander and the rover have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface.”
Once on the Moon, the rover will conduct experiments on the chemical makeup of the moon’s surface and search for water. The rover will have a life span of one lunar day, which is equivalent to 14 days on Earth.
As of now, the propulsion module continues its journey in the current orbit, and will continue to do so possibly for months or years. The Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload on board the Propulsion Module would perform spectroscopic study of the Earth’s atmosphere and measure the variations in polarization from the clouds on Earth to accumulate signatures of exoplanets that would qualify for habitability by humans. This payload is the work of U.R. Rao Satellite Centre, ISRO, Bengaluru.
The mission comes amid a breakthrough in boosting cooperation with the US in outer space. India is also in discussions with Japan to work on a moon mission together, ISRO Chairman S Somanath said. Post its launch on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 entered into the lunar orbit on August 5, following which orbit reduction manoeuvres were carried out on August 6, 9, 14 and 16.
As the mission progressed, a series of manoeuvers are being conducted by ISRO to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3’s orbit and position it over the lunar poles. On Wednesday, ISRO had successfully placed the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into a circular orbit of 153 kilometres by 163 kilometres around the Moon, completing all lunar-bound manoeuvers.
The lander is expected to touch down on the moon surface on August 23 at 5.47 p.m.
(Manas Dasgupta)