NEW DELHI, May 30 (NNN-PTI) – Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman, S. Somanath, yesterday said, the country’s third moon mission, Chandrayaan-3, will be launched in July this year.
Somanath made the remarks, after the successful launch of the second-generation navigation satellite, NSV-01, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, off the Bay of Bengal coast, in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Yesterday, the navigational satellite, weighing about 2,232 kg, was launched on board an expendable Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.
In Feb this year, Chandrayaan-3 had successfully undergone a key test that ensured the functionality of the satellite subsystems in space environment, and their compatibility with the expected electromagnetic levels.
In 2021, India’s federal junior minister for the Department of Space, Jitendra Singh, said, the realisation progress of Chandrayaan-3 was hampered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chandrayaan 2 was launched on July 22, 2019, from Sriharikota. However, the mission lander lost contact, shortly before the scheduled attempt to soft-land on the moon on Sept 7, 2019.
Later, the U.S. space agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said, its satellite orbiting the moon, found the debris of the crashed Chandrayaan 2.– NNN-PTI
