Chandrayaan-3 alternate landing site: pre-landing characterization

Abstract

India’s third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3, has successfully deployed a lander and a rover at a high-latitude location on the Moon to conduct in situ scientific studies that will potentially improve our understanding on the primary crust formation and subsequent modification processes. While the primary landing site (PLS) was situated at 69.367621°S lat., 32.348126°E long., an alternate landing site (ALS) was selected at nearly the same latitude but ∼450 km west of PLS, as a contingency. We carried out a detailed study of the geomorphology, composition and temperature characteristics of ALS using the best-ever high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) and ortho-images, and datasets obtained from Chandrayaan-1 and the on-going Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter along with a well-established thermophysical model. Results indicate that like PLS, ALS is also an interesting site for carrying out in situ scientific studies from any future lunar-landing mission.