On Friday afternoon, the spotlight will be on the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, from where India’s third moon mission will take to the skies. But some of the action before the lift-off will take place at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thumba.
The virtual launch control centre (VLCC) at the VSSC will have an important role to play in safely seeing off the powerful LVM3 launch vehicle carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft. The facility allows the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to remotely carry out system checkouts on the launch vehicle prior to a mission.
For the July 14 launch, scheduled for 2.35 p.m., all system check-outs up to 14 minutes and 30 seconds before lift-off from Sriharikota will be remotely carried out from the VLCC, a VSSC official said.
