Chandrayaan 3 to launch on July 14: A timeline of the mission's development

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) announced that the lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 will be launched on July 14. Last week, Isro chief S Somnath told the media that the space organisation was looking at mid-July as the possible timeline for the mission launch.

Chandrayaan-3 is the successor to Chandrayaan-2, an ill-fated mission that failed due to a last-minute glitch causing the Vikram Lander to lose control 500m short of the lunar surface and crash. 

Chandrayaan-3 is built at a cost of ₹615 crore. The mission aims successful landing on the lunar surface, followed by the deployment of the rover to study and conduct different experiments related to the Moon’s thermophysical properties, lunar seismicity, lunar surface plasma environment, and elemental composition.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission is different from its predecessor on a few accounts. For instance, the new lander has four motors instead of five, and the inclusion of the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study Earth measurements from lunar orbit.

Notably, to date, only three countries have successfully landed spacecraft on the lunar surface.

Here is a quick timeline of the entire mission, right from the first announcement to the recent confirmation of the launch date.

November 2019: First media reports of Isro planning Chandrayaan-3 emerged at this time. By then, Isro had formed several committees of experts to discuss important aspects of the mission, as reported by The Times of India.

January 2020: The mission was officially announced. The then Isro Chairman K Sivan said that work was going smoothly on the mission. He said that the space agency was looking at a 2020 launch, which may spill over to 2021.

February 2021: Coronavirus pandemic around the globe resulted in the delay of the mission launch to 2022. K Sivan said that Covid-19 lockdown has delayed Isro’s several projects including Chandrayaan-3. He then said that the mission was now aiming for a 2022 launch. He also added that Chandrayaan-3 has the same configuration as Chandrayaan-2 but it will not have an orbiter. The orbiter launched during Chandrayaan-2 will be used for Chandrayaan-3. 

October 2022: The present Isro chairman S Somnath said that ChandraOctoberyaan-3 mission is expected to be launched in August 2023: He also added that while the mission parameters would remain the same as the previous one, there were changes being made to the design and engineering parts to make the mission “more robust and avoid the problems from last time.”

June 2023: Following speculations over the launch of the mission in July, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft reached the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Before this, the final assembly of payloads was done at the UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru.

July 6, 2023: After giving a timeline of mid-July for the launch of the mission, Isro finally announced that Chandrayaan-3 would be launched on July 14 from Sriharikota aboard launch vehicle mark-3 (LMV-3).