I spoke to several lunar lander engineers to lay out how Chandrayaan 3 autonomously orchestrated the firing of its engines to safely touch down on the Moon, making India only the fourth country to achieve the feat.
Nice! So the CHandrayaan-3 added it's own last km propulsion control capability, per the HT full page graphic, compared to Chandrayaan 2? This way it could adaptively overcome trajectory errors up to the last moment?
The fact that the propulsion module (ditched by Chandrayaan 3 on Aug 17) STILL had ~150kg of fuel shows that cumulative trajectory errors can and do pile up! But this time the margin of fuel was way in excess! OMG. The "margin of fuel" wasted is an excellent and unexpected quality metric for the present mission! Further trips will prob trim that down as experience is gained! Great stuff.
How Chandrayaan 3 made its historic touchdown on our Moon
Congratulations to India 🇮🇳 for becoming a protagonist of our return to the Moon 🌖 and our ascent to the stars!
Awesome to watch this morning.
Nice! So the CHandrayaan-3 added it's own last km propulsion control capability, per the HT full page graphic, compared to Chandrayaan 2? This way it could adaptively overcome trajectory errors up to the last moment?
The fact that the propulsion module (ditched by Chandrayaan 3 on Aug 17) STILL had ~150kg of fuel shows that cumulative trajectory errors can and do pile up! But this time the margin of fuel was way in excess! OMG. The "margin of fuel" wasted is an excellent and unexpected quality metric for the present mission! Further trips will prob trim that down as experience is gained! Great stuff.