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Mahesh

07/12/23 07:41 AM IST

Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module retraces steps to Earth orbit

In News
  • Scientists have brought the Propulsion Module (PM) of the Chandrayaan-3 mission — which took the Vikram lander to within 100 km of the surface of the Moon before it detached and made the historic controlled descent to the lunar surface on August 23 — back into Earth orbit.
The Propulsion Module
  • Unlike Chandrayaan-2 — ISRO’s second lunar exploration mission that failed in September 2019 — the Chandrayaan-3 mission featured, instead of a full fledged orbiter, a light Propulsion Module that was essentially only a system for the lander to travel to the Moon.
  • For communications with Earth stations, the mission used the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which was still in orbit around the Moon with functioning systems on board.
  • The Chandrayaan-3 PM carried only an instrument called the Spectro Polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE), an experimental payload to look back at Earth and study the signatures that make it habitable, so as to identify habitable exoplanets.
  • The PM separated from the lander (which carried the Pragyaan rover in its belly) on August 17, but it was expected to continue orbiting the Moon for another six months, with SHAPE looking at Earth.
  • The main function of PM is to carry the LM [or Lander Module] from launch vehicle injection till final lunar 100 km circular polar orbit and separate the LM from PM. [The PM]…also has one scientific payload…which will be operated post separation of the Lander Module.
Significance
  • The initial plan for the PM was to operate SHAPE for about three months, which was essentially the module’s mission life.
  • The precise orbit injection by LVM3 (or Launch Vehicle Mark-3, which launched the Chandrayaan-3 mission) and optimal earth/ lunar burn manoeuvres, resulted in the availability of over 100 kg of fuel in the PM after over one month of operations in the lunar orbit.
  • It was not a part of our mission plan. The meticulous mission planning…and precise injection orbit by launch vehicle resulted in propellant saving. This was used as a demonstration for future lunar sample return missions.
  • On October 9, the agency performed a manoeuvre to raise the orbit of the PM around the Moon to 5,112 km from 150 km (from 2.1 hrs to 7.2 hrs).
  • Through efforts to bring the PM back to Earth orbit, ISRO has been able to understand what is involved in the “planning and execution of trajectory and manoeuvres to return from Moon to Earth” for a small spacecraft.
  • The experiment allows ISRO to work towards developing a software module to plan going forward.
  • The experiment will also allow the planning and execution of gravity-assisted flybys across celestial bodies, as well as avoidance of “uncontrolled crashing of the PM on the Moon’s surface at the end of life of PM.
Source- Indian Express

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