How Chandrayaan-3's successful landing would herald a big beginning for ISRO

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

ISRO on Monday said the Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander module has established communication with the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, and released images of the lunar far side area captured by the Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC). Referring to the expected touchdown, former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair kept his fingers crossed and said it's a very complex manoeuvre and one has to be cautious as all systems have to work in unison for its success. Nair, who headed the space agency when Chandrayaan-1 mission was launched in 2008, said a successful landing would herald a big beginning for ISRO's next phase of planetary exploration.

«It's a very complex manoeuvre. We narrowly missed it (soft-landing on the Moon in Chandrayaan-2 mission) in the last two kilometres (above the lunar surface),» he told PTI on Monday. «So, there are a host of things that have to work in unison...thrusters, sensors, altimeters, computer software and all those things.

Any glitch happening anywhere...we can be in trouble,» Nair said. «We have to be really cautious and watch. Of course, I understand that ISRO has done enough simulations and also redundancies have been built in so that chances of such failure are remote.

Still, we have to keep our fingers crossed.» Nair said: «Data we may collect from the (lunar) surface will be useful in identifying some minerals...rare minerals, if at all, helium-3 and so on. Also, try to have some investigations as to what type of setup we can have near the lunar south pole either for exploration or human presence. It (successful soft-landing) is going to be a big beginning for ISRO's next phase of planetary exploration».