Starting your 40-day journey on July
14 piggybacking on LVM-3 that was launched from Sriharikota and sitting quietly
in the Chandrayan -3 spacecraft, of course, in the company of propulsion module
got yourself placed in an elongated earth orbit with an apogee of about 36500
km above the planet.
You coolly circled the earth
from July 15 to 25 while your creators back home maneuvered to raise your orbit
around the earth so that you could slingshot yourself towards the moon on the
scheduled day … … interestingly, without, of course, sulking about spending so
many days in space going round and round the earth … … may be appreciating the
fact of your masters not having powerful rockets to place you in one go in
lunar orbit, and yet innovatively planning for such multiple revolutions around
the earth for so many days could afford you the required momentum to slingshot
to the moon … … and perhaps, being proud of their frugal venture … … of sending
you to moon so daringly … …
And starting on 1st
August … of course, aided by your masters’ maneuvers … … you did insert yourself
in lunar orbit on 5th August.
Once placed in the lunar orbit,
you again patiently orbited the moon till 16 th of August to come closer to the
moon … … of course, as maneuvered by your masters from Bangaluru … … … ….
Later, having unerringly separated
from the propulsion module on 17th August … … and bidding adieu to
your companion of all these days … … you merrily took a separate path of your
own to orbit the moon till 23rd of August … … just to slow down
yourself expending very little fuel…
Come 23rd August, as
your masters holding their breath watched you on their monitors, you started
your powered descent to the moon from an altitude of 25 Km horizontally @ 1.7
km per second. You fired your four main engines to cut about 80% of that speed.
In just 11 minutes you descended from 25 km to 7.4 km.
Next, keeping your orientation
relative to the surface fixed with the aid of your eight thrusters descended
from 7.4 Km to 6.8 km above the moon’s surface … … all in about 10 seconds.
Then, duly supported by the
sensors, you passed through the last phase … … “fine braking” phase … … using
only two of your four main engines you descended up to 850 meters above the
moon’s surface … …
Here, you hovered for 12
seconds with all your four legs pointing downwards to check if you were above
the intended landing spot by capturing pictures of the surface and comparing
them to the preloaded onboard satellite images and confirming that you were
above the predetermined safe landing spot you descended to 150 mt within two
minutes.
Once descended to 150 mt, you again hovered for 22 seconds while your navigation, guidance, and control system together with the hazard avoidance sensors and the actuators brought you from a perfectly horizontal to a perfectly vertical position and reevaluating the area below for landing hazards, if any and picking up the safe spot for touch down … … you landed on the moon gracefully at 6.04 pm Indian time … … at once, wild cheering filled the control room … … your masters were on their feet clapping happily at the success of your Odessey … … their Odessey!
In fact, you must thank your masters for this time round they endowed you with so many new strengths: they gave you two cameras, instead of one as before, to detect and avoid hazards; they gave you laser doppler velocimeter to sense your speed in three directions; you were loaded with more fuel to make necessary adjustments in your path, orientation, and speeds; your legs have been strengthened to withstand your weight better you were enabled to choose your landing site from a larger area on the moon’s surface; and above all your processing system for hazard avoidance was sped up to enable you to take landing decision much faster than your predecessor, Chandrayan-2 … … see, they gave you so much strength to make a wise decision for safe landing … …
Watching your triumphant touchdown on the moon—indeed, you had the distinction of being the first to land on the south pole of the moon—even I cried in joy forgetting that I was in the office … … in fact, every Indian crazily jumped in joy the moment you smoothly landed on the moon … …
Vikram, salutations to thee, you stood up to the aspirations of your founder leader, Dr Vikram Sarabhai.
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