Observing that reaching the moon itself was a challenging task,
India’s third Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-3 Project Director Dr. P. Veeramuthuvel said
achieving the safe and soft landing technology on the lunar surface was not only an
achievement for the scientific community, but it has become the country’s achievement.
He was delivering the keynote address and a presentation on Chandrayaan-3 at the
IIT-Madras campus on Monday, during an event titled “Over the Moon with Team
Chandrayaan-3′ while honouring 12 of its alumni of IIT-Madras in ISRO,
“It is by virtue of excellent team work and sheer perseverance that we have achieved
this safe and soft landing technology on the lunar surface”, he said.
“It is not only an achievement for the scientific community but it has become the country’s
achievement. This time, failure was not an option for us. But success did not come easily
also”, /dr Veeranuthuvel said.
“We crafted the lander in such a way that any path it takes, it should land. That was our
strategy this time. All our teams, particularly, across navigation, guidance, control,
propulsion systems, sensors and all the components, worked in unison. The confidence
stemmed from hundreds of lab tests and three important field tests.That was the most
challenging task – creating the lunar environment on earth and proving that all our systems
will work before the launch. It was one of our important tasks”, he added.
Dr. Veeramuthuvel said, “The Moon is away by 3.84 lakh kms. Reaching the moon itself
is a challenging task, even though we have done it in Chandrayaan 1 and 2. We have to
do it precisely. All system performances have to be on the dot to reach the moon.”
“Unlike other spacecraft, we have to launch in a specific launch window because the
landing is dictated by the launch window. We cannot launch in any given month. We
typically have a window which is twice in a year–January-February and July-August.
Which means, we have to realize the spacecraft well on time”, he said.
