Chandrayaan-3 final de-boosting completed, ISRO preparing for landing on Aug 23
This is the final leg of the mission. Now the lander module will undergo some internal checks while it hovers over the landing site waiting to make a soft landing near the south-polar region of the moon on August 23, around 5.45pm, according to ISRO
The second and final de-boosting operation for Chandrayaan-3 has successfully completed reducing the orbit of its lander module to 25km x 134km, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Sunday.

The final deboosting operation means the Chandrayaan module will attempt the soft landing on the south polar region from the current orbit (25 km x 134 km).
ISRO added that the module would undergo internal checks and await the sun-rise at the designated landing site.
“The powered descent is expected to commence on August 23, 2023, around 1745 Hrs. (5.45pm) IST,” ISRO informed via X (formerly Twitter).
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The first de-boosting operation was conducted on Friday where the orbit of the lander was reduced to 113kmX157km. The second operation was initiated around 2am on Sunday.
The space agency conducts de-boosting or deacceleration operations to gradually reduce the velocity of the spacecraft so that it attains a specified controlled speed before landing on the surface of the moon.
This is the final leg of the mission. Now the lander module will undergo some internal checks while it hovers over the landing site waiting to make a soft landing near the south-polar region of the moon on August 23, around 5.45pm, according to ISRO.
A follow-up mission to the 2019 Chandrayaan-2, the latest programme has three objectives —to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate rover abilities on the surface of the moon and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.
A successful soft landing on the moon will make India the fourth country to achieve the feat after the United States, Russia, and China.
Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous lander module (LM), propulsion module (PM) and a rover, to develop and demonstrate new technologies required for interplanetary missions. The lander has the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploys the rover, which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility.
After the lander module was separated from the propulsion module, the latter will now continue its journey along the lunar orbit for at least six months.
The propulsion module has a Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload to study the spectral and Polari metric measurements of Earth from the lunar orbit. In simpler terms, the propulsion module has started performing a spectroscopic study of the Earth’s atmosphere and measuring the variations in polarization from the clouds on Earth, to accumulate signatures of exoplanets that would qualify for our habitability