Chandrayaan-3 to make soft landing on Moon on Aug 23 at around 6:04 PM

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) ambitious mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan 3 spacecraft is scheduled to make a soft landing on the south pole of the lunar surface at around 6:04 pm (Indian Standard Time) on Wednesday. The space agency also shared that people can watch the historic event live on ISRO website, the space agency’s official YouTube channel, ISRO’s Facebook page and DD National from 5:27 pm onwards on 23rd of August.

Earlier this morning, ISRO announced that Chandrayaan-3’s lander module comprising lander ‘Vikram’ and rover ‘Pragyan’, has successfully completed its second and final deboosting, which reduced the lander module orbit with dimensions of 25km x 134km in the wee hours. The spacecraft’s Vikram lander successfully completed its first deboosting operation at 4 pm on August 18, reducing the lander module’s orbit to 113km x 157km.

A successful landing will make India the first country to land near the Moon’s little-explored south pole. It will be only the fourth country after the US, the former Soviet Union and China to achieve a soft landing on the Moon.