Chandrayan 3 likely to be launched during third quarter of 2022 : Jitendra Singh

28th July,2021

Chandrayaan-3, India's lunar mission, is likely to be launched during the quarter of 2022, Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday, emphasizing that its progress was hampered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a written response to a question in Lok Sabha, Mr. Singh, Minister of State in-charge of the Department of Space, said the launch of Chandrayaan-3 has now been rescheduled.

"Chandrayaan-3 is likely to be launched during the third quarter of 2022 assuming normal work flow henceforth," he said.

Mr. Singh added that the realisation of Chandrayaan-3 involves various processes, including finalisation of configuration, subsystems realisation, integration, spacecraft level detailed testing and a number of special tests to evaluate the detailed system performance on earth.

"The realisation progress was slowed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

However, all works that were possible in the work from home mode were taken up even during the lockdown. Chandrayaan-3 realisation again resumed after commencement of unlock period and is now in matured stage of realisation, he said.

Chandrayaan-2, which aimed at landing a rover on unchartered Lunar South Pole, was launched on July 22, 2019 on board the country's most powerful geosynchronous launch vehicle.

However, the lander Vikram hard-landed on September 7, 2019, crashing India's dream to become the first nation to successfully land on the lunar surface in its first attempt.

Chandrayaan-3 is very critical for ISRO as it will demonstrate India's capabilities to make landing for further interplanetary missions.