The launch of Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar mission, has been delayed to 2022 amid coronavirus pandemic.
Chandrayaan-3 was earlier slated to be launched this year, 2021. However, the Covid-19 lockdown affected several projects of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) including Chandrayaan-3.
Isro chief K Sivan said Chandrayaan-3 is likely to be launched in 2022 and it will not have an orbiter unlike it’s predecessor, Chandrayaan-2.
“We are working on it. It is the same configuration like Chandrayaan-2 but it will not have an orbiter. The orbiter launched during Chandrayaan-2 will be used for Chandrayaan-3. With that we are working on a system and mostly the launch will be next year in 2022,” Sivan was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
Earlier, Sivan had said that Isro was planning for landing at the same location as the Chandrayaan-2, the lander of which crash-landed on the moon surface just moments before it was supposed to soft-land.
Chandrayaan-2, aimed at landing a rover on unchartered Lunar South Pole, was launched on July 22, 2019 on board the country’s most powerful geosynchronous launch vehicle.
However, the lander Vikram hard-landed on September 7, 2019, crashing India’s dream to become the first nation to successfully land on the lunar surface in its maiden attempt.
Chandrayaan-3 is critical for ISRO as it will demonstrate India’s capabilities to make landing for further interplanetary missions.
It will be followed by another unmanned mission and the third leg is the main module, Sivan said.
K Sivan said ISRO is targeting December to launch the first unmanned mission under the Gaganyaan project.
Gaganyaan envisages to send three Indians to space by 2022. The four test pilots selected for the mission are currently undergoing training in Russia.
When asked about the launch of the third module of Gaganyaan — the manned mission — Sivan said, “A lot of technology needs to be demonstrated. We will decide on the time (of the manned mission) after checking whether all the technology is perfect.”
