Ahead of the launch of India's third moon rocket, road construction activities have been banned around the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, located in Sriharikota, until July 14.

Tamil Nadu's telecom department has imposed a ban on digging and construction activity to ensure all communication lines remain open, and the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft takes flight safely.

The communications lines are passing through major roads in the area, including NH5 (Chennai-Perambur-Gummidipundi), NH205 (Chennai-Tiruvallur) SH56 (Perambur-Ponneri), and SH50 (Tiruvallur-Uthukotai), and connections to Vellore, Aarani, Thiruvattipuram, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, and Vandalur in Chennai, Kancheepuram, Vellore, and Tiruvallur districts.

Notably, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) maintains all major communication links connecting ISRO’s space centre.

According to the telecom agency, "For the success of the rocket launch, it is essential to ensure the BSNL optical fibre cables are not damaged due to road widening, road repair and other digging activities during the period July 9-14".

About Chandrayaan:

Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 that is aimed make a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface. The mission will conduct in-situ scientific experiments. ISRO officials noted that the mission life of the lander is one lunar day, which is equal to 14 Earth days. "The date (for soft-landing) is decided based on when there is sunrise on the Moon. While landing, sunlight must be there. There is sunlight on the Moon for 14-15 days and for the next 14-15 days there is no sunlight," they noted.

Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous Lander module (LM), a Propulsion module (PM), and a Rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for Interplanetary missions. The Lander will have the capability to soft land at a specified lunar site and deploy the Rover which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface during the course of its mobility.

The propulsion module will carry the lander from launch vehicle injection to the final lunar 100 km circular polar orbit and separate the two.

The launcher identified for Chandrayaan-3 is GSLV MK-3 which will place the integrated module in an Elliptic Parking Orbit (EPO) of size ~170 x 36,500 km.

Lander payloads: Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature; Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) for measuring the seismicity around the landing site; Langmuir Probe (LP) to estimate the plasma density and its variations. A passive Laser Retroreflector Array from NASA is accommodated for lunar laser ranging studies.

Rover payloads: Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) for deriving the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site.

Chandrayaan-3 Launch Timings:

Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to be launched at 2.35 pm on July 14, with the lander expected to soft-land on the surface of the Moon on August 23 or 24.