Chandrayaan-3 will be launched in the first half of 2021, said Minister of State for the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Dr Jitendra Singh.

"We will resume with our Chandrayaan mission and Chandrayaan-3 will be launched in the first half of 2021," Dr Singh said on Wednesday.

The DoNER minister was replying to a query in Lok Sabha.

The DoNER minister further informed that the revised configuration takes care of the robustness in design, capacity enhancement for mission flexibility.

"The Chandrayaan-III mission has been configured based on the lessons learnt from Chadrayaan - II," Dr Singh said.

After Chandrayaan-II hard-landed on lunar surface last year, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) resolved to launch the project again.

It had said the project is likely to be launched by the end of the year.
Chandrayaan-1 was the India's first lunar probe under the Chandrayaan programme and it was launched by ISRO in October 2008, and operated until August 2009.

The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor.

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India launched the spacecraft using a PSLV-XL rocket on October 22, 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

On November 14, 2008, the Moon Impact Probe separated from the Chandrayaan orbiter and struck the south pole in a controlled manner, making India the fourth country to place its flag insignia on the Moon.

Chandrayaan-2 is India's second lunar exploration mission developed by ISRO and it was launched July 22, 2019, from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre by a GSLV Mark III.

The craft reached the Moon's orbit on August 20, 2019 and began orbital positioning manoeuvres for the landing of the Vikram lander.

Vikram and the rover were scheduled to land on the near side of the Moon, in the south polar region at a latitude of about 70° south on September 6 and conduct scientific experiments for one lunar day, which approximates two Earth weeks.

A successful soft landing would have made India fourth country after USSR, US and PRC to do so.

However, the lander deviated from its intended trajectory starting at 2.1 kilometres (1.3 mi) altitude and had lost communication when touchdown confirmation was expected.

Initial reports suggesting a crash were confirmed by ISRO chairman K Sivan, stating that "it must have been a hard landing".

The Failure Analysis Committee concluded that the crash was caused by a software glitch.

Unlike ISRO's previous record, the report of the Failure Analysis Committee has not been made public.