ISRO plans to do something with Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram Lander that has never been done before. It plans to be the first space mission to successfully execute a soft landing procedure on the Moon’s south pole. But how exactly is it planning to go about this? Know the intricate details that ISRO has planned for the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram Lander on the Moon.
#Chandrayaan3 #VikramLander #Chandrayaan2
~PR.151~ED.101~HT.96~
#Chandrayaan3 #VikramLander #Chandrayaan2
~PR.151~ED.101~HT.96~
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO plans to do something with Chandrayaan-3's
00:12 Vikram lander that has never been done before.
00:15 It plans to be the first space mission to successfully execute a soft landing procedure
00:21 on the moon's south pole.
00:23 But how exactly is it planning to go about this?
00:26 On August 23, during its last 15 minutes of attempting to softly land on the moon, the
00:32 lander has a tricky move to pull off.
00:35 It needs to shift from flying horizontally at high speed to being vertical, setting itself
00:40 up for a gentle descent onto the lunar surface.
00:43 As per reports, everything will have to be done within 15 minutes and every step during
00:49 these 15 minutes is going to be a make or break for the whole mission.
00:53 Back in July 2019, when the first try of the Chandrayaan-2 mission got cancelled by the
00:58 ISRO, K Sivan, who was the chief of India's space research organisation at the time, called
01:04 this phase "15 minutes of terror".
01:07 ISRO chairman S Somnath informed that Chandrayaan-3 will be tilted almost 90 degrees at the time
01:13 when the landing process will begin at 5.47 pm on August 23.
01:18 But it needs to be vertical for the landing.
01:20 He said that this process of turning the lander is a very interesting calculation mathematically.
01:25 This is where ISRO had a problem the last time, which led to the crash of Chandrayaan-2
01:29 on September 17, 2019.
01:32 Somnath said that while the transfer from the horizontal position to the vertical position,
01:36 the space agency has to ensure that the fuel consumed is less, the distance calculation
01:42 is correct and all the algorithms are working properly.
01:45 The lander is moving horizontally at a blazing 6048 km/hr.
01:52 The first big challenge is to get the horizontal speed down to 1290 km/hr.
01:58 At the time, the vertical speed needs to be brought down to about 220 km/hr.
02:03 This whole manoeuvre, known as the rough braking phase, should ideally take about 690 seconds.
02:09 During this phase, the lander will make its way down from a height of 30 km to 7.42 km
02:16 above the moon's surface.
02:17 Along the way, it's covering a distance of about 713.5 km across the lunar landscape,
02:23 heading toward its landing spot.
02:26 When the lander gets to 7.42 km up, it will enter what's called the altitude hold phase.
02:33 This stage lasts about 10 seconds.
02:36 During this time, the lander has to change its orientation from horizontal to vertical.
02:41 And while it's doing this twist, it will move about 3.48 km across the moon's surface.
02:47 The altitude drops a bit more to 6.8 km and the speeds also decrease to 336 m/s horizontally
02:56 and 59 m/s vertically.
02:59 Now we move to the third phase, which is the fine braking phase.
03:03 This is about a 175-second stretch where the lander completely transitions to a vertical
03:09 position.
03:10 It's the final approach, covering the last 28.52 km across the moon's surface to the
03:16 landing site.
03:18 At this point, the altitude gets down to around 800-1000 m and the speed ideally drops to
03:24 a calm 0 m/s.
03:27 Interestingly, even if things go really well, the Vikram lander will land with such a force
03:32 that had it been a human, all of its bones would have been crushed.
03:37 When the lander makes contact with the lunar surface, it's designed to do so with a maximum
03:42 speed of 3 m/s, which is equivalent to about 10.8 km/h.
03:47 This landing speed ensures the safety of the instruments on board so they won't get damaged
03:52 upon touchdown.
03:54 The Vikram lander module, along with Pragyan rover, has a combined mass of about 1,750
03:59 kg.
04:00 That's well over 2,000 kg even on the moon.
04:04 The ISRO chief said that although 3 m/s looks like a low speed, if a human falls at that
04:09 speed all our bones will be crushed.
04:12 The lander is built to handle a certain degree of tilt during landing.
04:16 It can have a tilt of up to 12 degrees and still manage a safe landing.
04:20 The flexibility in handling tilt adds an extra layer of assurance that the landing process
04:25 can accommodate some variability while ensuring a successful and safe touchdown.
04:30 [Music]