Chennai: Excitement is peaking around the globe as Chandrayaan-3 prepares for landing on the Moon tomorrow evening, a historic development that will make India only the 4th nation to carry out the exceptional feat.
The Indian Lunar Mission, the third, has successfully reached the final phase and the Chandrayaan Lander Module (LM) is slated for touch down on the South Polar Region of the Moon at 6.04 PM tomorrow.
The Chandrayaan-3 Mission, which was launched on July 14 from Sriharikota, aims to explore a hitherto unknown area.
So far, the Mission has been performing perfectly well and all eyes are now on the landing, which, on success, will mark India's entry into the elite group of countries which comprises the US, Russia and China.
The ISRO scientists are burning the midnight oil as they are tracking the Chandrayaan-3 Mission.
As history beckons India, the entire world is eagerly awaiting the successful accomplishment of Chandrayaan-3, especially after Russia's Luna-25 Moon Mission failed a few days back.
The Luna-25 crashed while entering the Lunar surface, thus shattering Russia's 47-year-long dream of softlanding, which was also touted as a competition with Chandrayaan-3.
The hours and minutes running up to the landing time of Chandrayaan-3 are going to be full of anxiety considering that India's last Moon Mission Chandrayaan-2 could not succeed fully in 2019.
Chandrayaan-2 was launched in July 2019 and the Lander, carrying a Rover, crash-landed due to a technical glitch very close to the landing site in September 2019, making the mission 99.99 per cent success.
Significantly, just hours before the landing of Chandrayaan-3, ISRO achieved a milestone when Chandrayaan-2, that carried Orbiter, yesterday formally welcomed the Lander Module (LM) of Chandryaan-3.
The two way communication between the two Ch-2 and Ch-3 has been established, ISRO said.
The Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter will be the backup communication channel for ISRO with the Chandrayaan-3 lander.
In post of "X" (formerly Twitter), ISRO said "Chandrayaan-3 Mission: ‘Welcome, buddy!’ Ch-2 orbiter formally welcomed Ch-3 LM."
"Two-way communication between the two is established. "Mission Operations Complex (MOX) has now more routes to reach the LM", it said. (UNI)
