Ahead of Chandrayaan-3 launch ISRO chief offers prayers at Tirupati temple

Chandrayaan-3, India's third moon exploration mission, will be launched on Friday at 2.35pm on Launch Vehicle Mark-3 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover till 100km lunar orbit.A day before the launch, The team of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) scientists visited the Tirupati Venkatachalapathy Temple with a miniature model of Chandrayaan-3.A team of around eight scientists was seen going inside the Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh. The team speaking to reporters outside the temple said, “This is Chandrayaan-3 — our mission to the moon...We have a launch tomorrow.” 

Among the team members was Shantanu Bhatwadekar, the Scientific Secretary of Isro.Isro Chairman S Somanath after offering prayers at Sri Chengalamma Temple in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh said on Thursday, “Chandrayaan-3 will start its journey tomorrow. We are hoping that everything goes right and it lands on the moon on August 23.”The countdown for the Chandrayaan-3 mission will be beginning on Thursday. The 26-hour countdown will begin at 1:05 pm.The Isro also completed the launch rehearsal lasting 24 hours for Chandrayaan-3, the country’s third lunar mission, on Tuesday. In a tweet, Isro said, “The ‘Launch Rehearsal’ simulating the entire launch preparation and process lasting 24 hours has been concluded.”

Chandrayaan-3 is a mission following Chandrayaan-2. The mission is set to “demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface”. Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous lander module, a propulsion module and a rover. Its objectives include developing and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions. The lander will have the capability to land at a specified lunar site and deploy the rover, which will carry out chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility.The lander and rover will have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the moon’s surface