Chandrayaan-3: Vikram lander just 30km away from moon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The lander detached from the propulsion module traveled further closer to the moon's surface on Friday. As part of preparations for landing on Wednesday, the lander's orbit was lowered for the first time at 4 pm on Friday. Meanwhile, ISRO shared through social media, the images of the moon captured by the lander.

The crucial procedure of de-boosting was involved in slowing down the lander, to bring it down to the lower orbit in the targeted soft landing. The thruster engines were also ignited for this purpose. The lander was placed in an elliptical orbit that is 113 x 157 km from the Moon. On 20th August at 2 am, the lander will be slowed down for the final landing procedure. Two of the four decelerating thruster engines will work simultaneously to bring the lander to a 30 x 100 km orbit.

The lander will be forced to touch the moon's surface from 30km height. When it reaches 800m distance away from the moon, the thruster engines will work again and the lander will go idle for a few minutes.

A laser Doppler velocity meter is employed to accurately determine the lander's speed. Interestingly, Laser Doppler was not used in Chandrayaan’s previous mission. On 23rd August at 5: 47 pm, the lander will touch the surface of the moon.