THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chandrayaan 3 is ready for launch. The probe was attached to the rocket yesterday morning. The launch will be using India's most powerful LVM 3 rocket. The rocket is capable of delivering up to 4000 kg in space easily. The LVM rocket has been prepared and parked on the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.

The probe has a distance of 3.84 lakh kilometers to travel. It has a propulsion module weighing 2148 kg, a lander weighing 1723.89 kg and a rover weighing 26 kg. The weight of Chandrayaan 2 was 3800 kg and it had a 2379 kg orbiter, 1444 kg lander and 27 kg rover.

Chandrayaan 3 features a relanding facility. If it is unable to land at the specified location, it can change the landing location. This precaution was prompted by the experience of Chandrayaan 2, which failed at the last moment while trying to land.

The objective of the mission is to perform a soft landing of the exploratory probe on the lunar surface, move the rover robot send inside the lander across the lunar surface, and collect information about the composition of the lunar surface.

The landing will be similar to that of Chandrayaan 2, near the South Pole of the Moon at 70 degrees latitude. If all goes well, Chandrayaan 3 will be the world's first mission to make a soft landing near the Moon's south pole.

There is also a technique to modify the soft landing at the last minute. The soft landing is scheduled for August 23 or 24. A soft landing can be done at the specified time only if everything goes as planned. Or else the soft landing will be done in the next following days.