Landing Profile and Powered Descent Strategy for Chandrayaan-3

Abstract

Chandrayaan-3 became the first lunar robotic exploration mission to accomplish soft touch-down near lunar south pole. This was achieved through years of design, development and rigorous testing at sub-system followed by system level integrated tests. Simulations were carried out to validate the design of the powered descent profile which evolved through extensive iterations to satisfy all the mission constraints. These constraints include sensors and actuator operating limits, optimizing between tolerable navigation error and guidance convergence limits, system ability to handle multiple failure scenarios and sufficient robustness in design. This paper presents the landing strategy and powered descent profile designed for Chandrayaan-3.