Chennai: The 25.5 hour countdown for India's third Lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 on Friday commenced at the SHAR Ranage, Sriharikota, at 1.05 p.m., on Thursday.
After the Mission Readiness Review, the Launch Authorisation Board gave the clearance following which the countdown for the prestigious mission began at the SDSC Centre.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in a tweet said, "LVM3 M4/Chandrayaan-3 Mission: The countdown leading to the launch tomorrow at 14:35:17 Hrs. IST has commenced."
ISRO will be using its heaviest rocket Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3-M4) to launch the integrated Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft module in an Elliptic Parking Orbit of size 170 x 36500 km.
The 43.5 m tall launch vehicle, with a lift off mass of 642 tons will take off from the Second Launch Pad at 2.35 p.m on Friday.
About 16 minutes after the lift off, the Chandrayaan-3 will be injected into a 179 km Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) from where it will begin its long journey for a safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.
After a more than 3.5 lakh km journey, the soft landing was expected to take place in the last week of August.
The date (landing date) is decided when there is sunrise on the moon. When we are landing, sunlight must be there. So the landing will be on August 23 or 24,” according to ISRO Chairman S.Somanath.
If the landing does not take place as planned on August 23 or 24, then ISRO will wait for another month to make a landing attempt in September.
“The lander and the rover will stay on the moon for 14 days until sunlight is there. When there is no sunlight, a small solar panel which is on the rover will generate power to charge the battery for the next 14 days until light comes", he had said. (UNI)