Chandrayaan-3 integrated with launch vehicle LVM3

Why in news?

• ISRO has announced that it has successfully integrated the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft with the launch vehicle, Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3), at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

About Chandrayan 3:

• After the partial failure of Chandrayaan 2, ISRO has started working on a third lunar mission to land an unmanned spacecraft near the Moon's South Pole.
• Chandrayaan-3 will be a mission repeat of Chandrayaan-2 but will only include a lander and rover similar to that of Chandrayaan-2. It will not have an orbiter.
• ISRO will use the fully-functional orbiter successfully placed in lunar orbiter via Chandrayaan 2.
• The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in 2023

What is LVM3?

• LVM3 is India’s heaviest rocket with a gross lift-off weight of 640 tonnes.
• It is essentially a three-stage launch vehicle, including two solid boosters (S200), the core liquid fuel-based stage (L110), and the cryogenic upper stage (C25).
• It can carry up to 8 tonnes of payload to the lower earth orbits (LEO), which is about 200 km from the Earth’s surface.
• But when it comes to the geostationary transfer orbits (GTO), which lie much further ahead, up to about 35,000 km from the Earth, it can carry only about four tonnes.
• LVM3 made its first journey into space in 2014 and also carried the Chandrayaan-2 in 2019.
• In March, 2023, it placed 36 OneWeb satellites, weighing about 6,000kg in LEO showing its capabilities to deliver multiple satellites into space.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, proposed to be launched by ISRO in 2023, will consists of:

1. Lunar rover

2. Lunar lander

3. Lunar Orbiter

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 only

(b) 1 and 2 only

(c) 2 and 3 only

(d) 1,2 and 3

Answer