Chandrayaan-3 Spacecraft Integrated With Launch Vehicle, Announces ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday integrated the encapsulated assembly containing Chandrayaan-3 with the launch vehicle — LVM3 at Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

"Today, at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, the encapsulated assembly containing Chandrayaan-3 is mated with LVM3," tweeted ISRO.

The space agency's chairman S Somnath last month told ANI that they are planning for the launch day of its third lunar mission between July 13 and July 19.

"We will be able to do a soft landing on the moon. The launch day is July 13, it can go upto July 19," Somnath had said.

Earlier in October last year, the ISRO chairman said that it is likely to launch its Chandrayan-3 mission in June 2023.

Addressing a press conference, Somanath had said that mission Chandrayaan-3 is almost ready to be launched in June 2023.

"Chandrayaan-3 is almost ready. Final integration and testing are almost complete. Still, some more tests are pending, so we want to do it a little later. There were two slots available one in February and another in June. We would like to take June (2023) slot for the launch," he had said.

Chandrayaan-2, India's second mission to the moon, was launched on July 22, 2019, from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota. But the mission failed after the Vikram lunar lander crashed on the Moon during the early hours of September 6.