Chandrayaan-2 helpful for Chandrayaan-3’s soft landing? Explains astronomer Priya Hasan

Chandrayaan-2 helped the ongoing mission, said astronomer Priya Hasan while speaking to news agency ANI. In conversation, Hasan explained how the orbiter of the Chandrayaan-2, which is still orbiting around the moon, will help the crucial part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. 

Exuding confidence in India's chance for a smooth landing, the astronomer said, “What happens in a soft landing is that the lander lands at a very large speed of about 6,000 km per hour. Suddenly, it has to be braked and dropped onto the surface. Now, we know the surface is full of craters. For Chandrayaan-2, also, a lot of things were done to ensure that, but obviously it did not work out. I mean, it did not work. It finally crashed onto the surface.”

Stating how India has made itself better than the past experience, she said, “And now the good advantage we have is that the orbiter has been working since 2019. And what the orbiter basically did, it has very well mapped up the whole surface of the Moon. We didn’t have such perfect maps of the Moon earlier. Now we have that, thanks to Chandrayaan-2. Chandrayaan-3 does not have an orbiter because the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is still functional.” 

Chandrayaan-2 welcomes Chandrayaan-3 

In what can be termed as a significant development in the Chandrayaan-3’s soft landing, the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which was orbiting around the moon established a two-way connection with the lander module of Chandrayaan-3 on Monday, August 21. 

"'Welcome, buddy!' The Ch-2 orbiter formally welcomed Ch-3 LM (lander module). Two-way communication between the two is established. MOX (Mission Operations Complex) has now more routes to reach the LM," stated ISRO. 

Luna-25’s crash explains how difficult landing is

Speaking of Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft, which was unsuccessful and crashed, Priya explained how difficult the landing is.

"So that's basically an indicator of how difficult this (landing) job is. So we are excited, but obviously at the same time also worried because it's a difficult job. We've learned from our mistakes. So, as I said, we have a better map of the surface. They've done things to strengthen the legs of the rover and do various things so it can do this job better. But obviously, it's a very complicated maneuver. It's the most crucial part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. Sending it was not a problem because ISRO knows how to do that very well. So launching and all was not crucial or even getting it into lunar orbit was not crucial. The crucial part is tomorrow," she said.

"And like I said, there are many maneuvers, which will take place at that time (landing time). So let's hope because there are many things that can go wrong. Let's hope everything goes well," she added. 

She further spoke about India’s space budget, compared to that of other countries. “Space programs of other big countries are backed by huge budgets in comparison to India,” she said. 

"If you see the kind of budgets that ISRO works on in all these programs...ISRO has a budget, which is like 10 times lesser than the budget of other big countries," she said.