Chandrayaan-3 launch likely on July 13; ISRO chief says no final decision yet
New Delhi, Jun 28: India is looking at July 13 as a possible launch date for Chandrayaan-3 that entails landing a rover on the lunar surface.
A senior official said the Chandrayaan-3 mission would be launched on July 13 at 2:30 pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
However, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath said while the date has not been finalised yet, the agency was looking at the earliest possible date between July 12 and 19.
He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an Indian Air Force event.
"Currently, the window of opportunity is between July 12 and 19. We will take the earliest possible date, may be July 12, 13 or 14 and go towards the end, unless there is a technical issue cropping up," he said replying to queries related to the July 13 launch date.
"No exact date has been announced. We will come to that exact date after all the tests are completed final date will be within this range," Somanath said.
ISRO said the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has been fully built and assembled with the faring, and is waiting for integration with the rocket.
"Currently, the rocket integration is going on and possibly it will be completed in another two to three days, and then we have to go for a test programme," Somanath said. He added that after integration with the rocket a series of tests would also be carried out.
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 has a lander and rover configuration.
The propulsion module will carry the lander and rover configuration till 100 km lunar orbit. It has a Spectro-Polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth payload to study the spectral and polarimetric measurements of Earth from lunar orbit.
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SWR announces special trains for passengers stranded by large-scale IndiGo cancellations
Bengaluru (PTI): The South Western Railway on Saturday announced a series of special trains, in coordination with Central, South Eastern and Southern Railways, to clear stranded passengers following large-scale IndiGo flight cancellations across the country.
The special services will operate between December 6 and 10 on high-demand routes, including Bengaluru–Chennai, Bengaluru–Pune, Yesvantpur–Hazrat Nizamuddin, Shalimar–Yelahanka and Ernakulam–Yelahanka, officials said.
According to an official statement, SWR will run Train No. 06255/06256 between Chennai Egmore and KSR Bengaluru, 06257/06258 between Bengaluru and MGR Chennai Central, 06259/06260 between Yesvantpur and Hazrat Nizamuddin, and 06263/06264 between Bengaluru and Pune.
ALSO READ: Indigo flights chaos: SCR to run special trains to clear passenger rush
Central Railway will operate Train No. 01413/01414 between Pune and Bengaluru, while South Eastern Railway will run Train No. 08073/08074 between Shalimar and Yelahanka. Southern Railway will operate Train No. 06147/06148 between Ernakulam and Yelahanka, the statement said.
Railways has advised passengers to check updated timings on its official channels and arrive early at stations.
For at least five days in a row, IndiGo flight operations have been significantly disrupted, with a large number of cancellations and delays causing hardships to thousands of passengers. In many cases, baggage has been misplaced.
