Chandrayaan-3: Third lunar mission in 15 years! Moon truly beckons ISRO

Three Lunar missions in 15 years It seems the Moon truly beckons ISRO And why not Scientists found frozen water deposits in the darkest and coldest parts of the Moons polar regions for the first time using data from the Chandrayaan1 spacecraft in 2009Chandrayaan1 Indias first mission to the Moon was launched on October 22 2008 from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra PradeshThe spacecraft carrying 11 scientific instruments built in India the USA the UK Germany Sweden and Bulgaria orbited around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical mineralogical and photogeologic mapping of the MoonAfter the successful completion of all the major mission objectives the orbit was raised to 200 km in May 2009 The satellite made more than 3400 orbits around the MoonThe orbiter mission which had a mission life of two years was however prematurely aborted after communication with the spacecraft was lost on August 29 2009Chandrayaan1 achieved 95 per cent of its objectivesiquest said the then ISRO Chairman G Madhavan NairAnd a decade later Chandrayaan2 comprising an orbiter lander and rover was successfully launched on July 22 2019The objectives of the countrys second mission to the Moon were scientific studies by payloads onboard the orbiter and technology demonstration of soft landing and roving on the lunar surfaceMost of the components of technology demonstration including the launch orbital critical manoeuvres lander separation deboost and rough braking phase were successfully accomplishedHowever the lander with a rover in its belly crashlanded on the lunar surface in the final lap failing in its objective to touch down gentlyWe narrowly missed it soft landing on the Moon in Chandrayaan2 mission in the last two km above the lunar surface Nair had told PTI on MondayHowever all the eight scientific instruments of the orbiter which had separated from the lander and rover are performing as per design and providing valuable scientific dataDue to the precise launch and orbital manoeuvres the mission life of the orbiter increased to seven years according to ISROIn fact ISRO on Monday said that twoway communication between the Chandrayaan2 orbiter and the Chandrayaan3 lunar module has been establishedMoreover the discovery of water on the Moon in 2009 was a hugely significant event following which scientists using data from an instrument which flew aboard Indias Chandrayaan1 spacecraft created the first map of water trapped in the uppermost layer of the Moons soil It would prove useful to future lunar explorers ISRO officials saidThe study published in the journal Science Advances builds on the initial discovery in 2009 of water and a related ion hydroxyl which consists of one atom each of hydrogen and oxygen in lunar soilScientists from Brown University in the US used a new calibration of data taken from NASAs Moon Mineralogy Mapper which flew aboard the Chandrayaan1 spacecraft in 2008 to quantify how much water is present on a global scaleUsing data collected by Indias Chandrayaan1 mission NASA has detected magmatic water locked under the surface of the MoonThe findings represent the first remote detection of this form of water that originates from deep within the Moons interior NASA researchers had saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever