November 13, 2025
Chandrayaan-3 (CH-3) mission is to demonstrate safe and soft landing on Lunar Surface, demonstrate Rover roving on the Moon and conduct in-situ experiments. CH-3 mission consisted the Lander Module, Propulsion Module and a Rover. The satellite was successfully launched on-board LVM3 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota on July 14, 2023, at 14:35 Hrs. IST.
After the historic lunar landing of CH3 on August 23, 2023, its Propulsion Module (PM) was operated in its lunar orbit at an altitude of nearly 150 km till October 2023. The PM was then relocated to a high-altitude Earth-bound orbit by executing Trans-Earth Injection (TEI) manoeuvres in October 2023. Since then, CH3-PM was revolving in this orbit under the influence of the Earth's and Moon's gravity fields.
This interplay of gravity fields has led the spacecraft to enter the Moon Sphere of Influence (SOI) on November 04, 2025, where the Moon's gravitation dominates the motion. On November 06, 2025 07:23 UT, the first lunar flyby event took place outside the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) visibility at a distance of 3740 km from the Moon's surface. The second flyby event was visible from the IDSN, the closest approach distance was 4537 km from the Moon's surface on November 11, 2025, 23:18 UT. CH3-PM is expected to exit the Moon's SOI on November 14, 2025.
The satellite orbit has changed from 1 lakh x 3 lakh km to 4.09 lakh x 7.27 lakh km in terms of size and its inclination changed from 34 deg to 22 deg due to this flyby events. The flyby event trajectory has been monitored very closely from ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), ISRO. A special care was taken to monitor its trajectory and close proximities from the Beyond Earth Space Objects. The overall Satellite performance is normal during the flyby and no close approach was experienced with the other lunar orbiters. This event garnered valuable insights and experience from mission planning, operations, flight dynamics perspectives, and especially enhanced the understanding of disturbance torques effects.