Chandrayaan 3: Why it takes 40 days to reach the Moon?

Before knowing about Chandrayaan-3, here's a short introduction on how it all started:

Chandrayaan-1, India's first lunar mission, operated successfully from October 2008 to August 2009. 

Chandrayaan -1

It discovered water molecules on the Moon's surface and provided valuable data on lunar topography, mineralogy, and the presence of helium-3. The mission ended when communication with the spacecraft was lost.

Chandrayaan-2 experienced a partial failure during its mission in September 2019. 

Chandrayaan -2

While the orbiter successfully entered the lunar orbit, the lander Vikram had a hard landing and communication was lost with the rover Pragyan. However, the orbiter continues to function and collect valuable data from the lunar surface.

Chandrayaan-3 is the next mission after Chandrayaan-2, aiming to showcase successful landing and lunar surface exploration. It comprises a Lander and Rover, launched by LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota, on Friday, July 14 by 2:35PM IST

Chandrayaan - 3

The propulsion module carries them to a 100 km lunar orbit. It also carries SHAPE payload to study Earth's spectral and polarimetric properties from the moon's orbit.

1. Total Weight: 3900 Kg 2. Propulsion: 2148Kg 3. Lander: 1752Kg (including Rover of 26Kg) 

How much does Chandrayaan weighs?

1. Safe and Soft Landing on Lunar Eclipse. 2. To demonstrate Rover roving on the moon.  3. To conduct in-situ scientific experiments

3 Goal of Chandrayaan - 3

Laser & RF based Altimeters.

Advanced Technologies in Lander are

Laser Doppler Velocimeter & Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera.

Laser Gyro based Inertial referencing and Accelerometer package.

800N Throttleable Liquid Engines, 58N attitude thrusters & Throttleable Engine Control Electronics.

Powered Descent Trajectory design and associate software elements 

Lander Hazard Detection & Avoidance Camera and Processing Algorithm

Landing Leg Mechanism

Chandrayaan -3 is expected to land Moon on 23 August 2023. 

When Chandrayaan - 3 is expected to land on Moon

The spacecraft will cover the nearly 3,84,000 kilometers distance between the Earth and Moon in nearly 40 days, which is much longer than what the Apollo mission launched by Nasa would take. 

Why it takes 40 days to reach moon?

A successful landing would make India the fourth country, after the US, Soviet Union and China.