S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), attributes the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon to “the result of the hard work of thousands of people in ISRO”, the “rigour of the reviews”, and “corrective action taken meticulously.”
In an interview with T.S. Subramanian in Bengaluru, Dr. Somanath asserted that the launch of the LVM-3 rocket on July 14 from Sriharikota and its placing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into its earth-bound orbit was the “most critical event” of the mission. He also spoke about the significance of the hop test conducted with the Vikram lander on the moon, said that “we are in the process of thinking about” a sample return mission from the moon, and shared his thoughts on the Aditya-L1 mission.
Question: How confident were you about the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s success? What were the contributing factors that led to the success – to the lander Vikram soft-landing on the moon and the rover Pragyan sliding down from Vikram?
