Chandrayaan-3 successfully inserted into lunar orbit, says ISRO
Bengaluru, Aug 5: India's ambitious third Moon mission's 'Chandrayaan-3' spacecraft was successfully inserted into the lunar orbit on Saturday, ISRO said.
The required manoeuvre was done from an ISRO facility here, the city-headquartered national space agency said in a tweet.
"Chandrayaan-3 has been successfully inserted into the lunar orbit. A retro-burning at the Perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network), Bengaluru," the space agency said in a tweet.
Perilune is the spacecraft's closest point to the moon.
The next operation -- reduction of orbit -- will be done at 11 pm on Sunday, ISRO added.
The space agency also shared a message from the satellite to its centres, which read, "MOX, ISTRAC, this is Chandrayaan-3. I am feeling lunar gravity."
According to ISRO sources, there will be four more Moon-bound manoeuvres to bring the satellite closer to the Moon, which is a 100 kilometre circular orbit.
After the manoeuvre on Sunday, there will be three more till August 17, following which the landing module, comprising the lander and rover will break away from the propulsion module. After this, de-orbiting manoeuvres will be carried on the lander before the final descent on moon. According to ISRO, it would attempt soft landing on the Moon's surface on August 23.
Over five moves in the three weeks since the launch on July 14, ISRO has been lifting the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into orbits farther and farther away from the Earth.
Then, on August 1 in a key manoeuvre -- a slingshot move -- the spacecraft was sent successfully towards the Moon from Earth's orbit.
Following this trans-lunar injection, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft escaped from orbiting the Earth and began following a path that would take it to the vicinity of the moon.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. It consists of lander and rover configuration.
It comprises an indigenous propulsion module, lander module, and a rover with an objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for inter-planetary missions.
The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration till 100 km lunar orbit. The propulsion module has Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and polarimetric measurements of earth from the lunar orbit.
The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to demonstrate safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate rover roving on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.
The lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the rover that will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the Moon's surface during the course of its mobility.
The lander and the rover have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
— ISRO (@isro) August 5, 2023
“MOX, ISTRAC, this is Chandrayaan-3. I am feeling lunar gravity 🌖”
🙂
Chandrayaan-3 has been successfully inserted into the lunar orbit.
A retro-burning at the Perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), ISTRAC, Bengaluru.
The next… pic.twitter.com/6T5acwiEGb
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
NEET student hangs self in Rajasthan's Sikar
Jaipur (PTI): A student preparing for the NEET examination allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a rented room in Rajasthan's Sikar on Friday, police said.
According to the police, the student allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his sister's scarf while one sister was attending coaching classes and the other was in the bathroom.
He had appeared in the NEET UG exam 2026, which was cancelled due to paper leak, they said.
Udyog Nagar SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased, identified as Pradeep Meghwal, was a resident of Kanika ki Dhani village in Jhunjhunu's Gudha Gaudji area.
He had been living in a rented room in Sikar's Jaldhari Nagar area with his two sisters while preparing for NEET over the last three years.
His elder sister later found him hanging and informed the landlord and police after bringing him down, officials said.
The SHO said the body was kept at SK Hospital mortuary, and a postmortem had not been conducted.
The student's father, Rajesh Kumar Meghwal, told police that Pradeep's NEET examination had gone well and the family was expecting him to score around 650 marks.
Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot expressed grief over the incident and linked it to anxiety among students after reports of irregularities and paper leaks in NEET 2026.
Pilot said repeated paper leak incidents and cancellation of examinations were affecting students' mental health and demanded a time-bound investigation and strict action against those responsible.
