Countdown for Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar exploration mission, to begin this afternoon

The countdown for Chandrayaan-3, India’s third lunar exploration mission, will begin today afternoon. The 26-hour countdown will begin at 1.05 pm. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch Chandrayaan-3 by LVM3 rocket at 2.35 pm tomorrow from the Sathish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

India will become the fourth country to land its spacecraft on the surface of the moon and demonstrate the country's abilities for safe and soft landing on the lunar surface. 

Around 16 minutes after the lift-off of LVM 3,  the propulsion module is expected to get seperated from the rocket and would orbit the earth for about 5 to 6 times in an elliptical cycle with 170 km closest and 36, 500 km farthest from the earth moving towards the lunar orbit. It will gain speed as it proceeds towards for a month-long journey towards reaching the



orbit of the moon until it goes 100 km above the lunar surface.

After reaching the desired position, the lander module would begin its descent for a soft landing on the south pole region of the moon and this action is expected to take place either on 23rd or 24th of next month.The mission is to study earth from lunar orbit and to measure the near surface and its density changes. 

The mission is also to carry out measurements of thermal properties of the lunar surface near the polar region and look out for lunar seismic activity around the landing site and delineate the structure of the lunar crust and mantle. Rover, which has a mission life of one lunar day is 14 earth days, also has another payload to determine the elemental composition of lunar soil and rocks around the landing site.