PM Modi is on a three-day official visit to South Africa to attend the 15th BRICS summit.(FILE)
As Chandrayaan-3 will attempt to land on the uncharted south pole of Moon tomorrow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join the landing programme virtually from South Africa, where he is on a three-day official visit to attend the 15th BRICS summit.
Chandrayaan-3's Lander Module (LM) - lander Vikram and rover Pragyan - is scheduled to make a touch down near the lunar south pole at 6.04 pm on Wednesday, days after the failure of a Russian vehicle trying to achieve the same feat. Success for Chandrayaan-3 will make India the fourth country to master the technology of soft-landing on the lunar surface after the US, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union.
All systems on an Indian spacecraft heading to the moon are working "perfectly" and no contingencies are anticipated on the landing day, the country's space agency said on Monday.
This is India's second attempt to land on the Moon after a failure in 2019.
Chandrayaan-2 had failed in its lunar phase when its lander 'Vikram' crashed into the surface of the Moon following anomalies in the braking system in the lander while attempting a touch down on September 7, 2019.
During that attempt, PM Modi had flown to Bengaluru to watch the planned touch down of the lander. Even the mission failed, the space agency witnessed a heartfelt moment between the Prime Minister and former ISRO chief K Sivan.
PM Modi hugged and consoled Mr Sivan as he broke down, hours after the space agency announced it lost contact with the lander.
In his nearly 30-minute long address to the ISRO scientists, PM had then said: "Our determination to touch moon has become even stronger and the best is yet to come."
The Chandrayaan-3 mission was launched on July 14 from India's main space port in Andhra Pradesh. over five moves in the three weeks since the July 14 launch, ISRO had lifted 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.