14 July - Chandrayaan-3 launched

 

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 consists of Lander and Rover configuration. It will be launched by LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. The launch of Chandrayaan-3 took place at 14 July 2023, at 2:35 pm IST

Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous Lander module (LM), Propulsion module (PM) and a Rover with an objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for Inter planetary missions. The Lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the Rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility. The Lander and the Rover have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface. The main function of PM is to carry the LM from launch vehicle injection till final lunar 100 km circular polar orbit and separate the LM from PM. Apart from this, the Propulsion Module also has one scientific payload as a value addition which will be operated post separation of Lander Module.

 The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are:

•     To demonstrate Safe and Soft Landing on Lunar Surface
•     To demonstrate Rover roving on the moon and
•     To conduct in-situ scientific experiments.

For reference we have put a cover of Chadrayaan 2 which was a special postal cover issued by West Bengal Postal Circle on Sep 07, 2019.

The cover bears the title "CHANDRAYAAN-2" in Hindi and English ("Chandrayaan" stands for "lunar spacecraft/vehicle") at the bottom left - "7 September 2019" (the date of the start of the lunar mission of the Indian spacecraft). The cover also includes an image of the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft leaving Earth orbit and heading toward the Moon.

Stars in space can be seen in the background on the cover.

At upper right is a 500 paise (or Rs.5/-) stamp depicting the earth with the moon in the distance. It is from the set of stamps titled Solar System issued by India Post in 2018. The special postmark is inscribed "CHANDRAYAAN 2 MOON MISSION" and shows the spacecraft in the centre. The cancellation date is "07.09.2019" and the postmark is from Kolkata Post Office.