Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman Dr. S. Somanath said Diwali started a day early for the space agency with the successful launch of the heaviest rocket carrying 36 communication satellites. Addressing a press conference on the occasion, Dr Somanath said that Chandrayaan 3 is “almost ready”. “Chandrayaan-3 is almost ready. Final integration and testing is almost complete. Some more tests are still pending, so we want to do it a little later. There were two slots available, one in February and the other in June. We would like to took up the June (2023) slot for launch,” he said. All 36 satellites were injected into orbit about 75 minutes after the rocket lifted off from the spaceport here. The success postponed an August anomaly when the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) mission rendered the satellites unusable.
After the completion of the “historic” mission, Somanath, also Secretary, Ministry of Space credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the success of the mission. “Congratulations to the entire launch vehicle team for rising to the occasion and preparing them for a historic mission today. I would also like to thank the OneWeb team for trusting us to host LVM3…we very much hope that the next LVM3 mission will do the same to place the remaining 36 satellites contracted by NSIL,” he said.
Chandrayaan- 3 probably in June
Chandrayaan-3 was planned to demonstrate India’s ability to soft-land on a celestial body – with the rover communicating with Earth through the existing orbiter from Chandrayaan-2. The current orbiter has an estimated life of seven years.
The mission was announced months after the Vikram lander aboard Chandrayaan-2 crash-landed on the lunar surface just 2.1 km from its destination in September 2019. Initially, Chandrayaan-3 was scheduled for late 2020 or early 2021, but had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. ISRO completed manufacturing of the propulsion system for Chandrayaan-3 before the second wave of the pandemic in April. The lander and propulsion systems were integrated and several tests were planned for mid-year.
