Work on the project has resumed after being affected due to the Covid-19 lockdown

Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar exploration mission, is likely to be launched during the third quarter of 2022.

The mission planned by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was originally scheduled for late 2020 but work on the project was affected due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

"Realization of Chandrayaan-3 is in progress," Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

The realization of Chandrayaan-3 involves various process including finalization of configuration, subsystems realization, integration, spacecraft level detailed testing and a number of special tests to evaluate the system performance on earth.

The realization progress was hampered due to COVID-19 pandemic. However, all works that were possible in work from home mode were taken up even during lockdown periods, Singh said.

Chandrayaan-3 realization resumed after commencement of unlock period and is in matured stage of realization, he added in his reply.

According to ISRO, the Chandrayaan-1 mission, launched in 2008, performed high-resolution remote sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared (NIR), low energy X-rays and high-energy X-ray regions.

India’s second mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-2 was launched in July 2019.

It had been described as a highly complex mission to develop and demonstrate the key technologies for end-to-end lunar mission capability, including soft-landing and roving on the lunar surface.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission was India's first attempt to land on the lunar surface but the Lander had a hard-landing.

Its Orbiter, which is still in the lunar orbit, has a mission life of seven years.