The Rs 978 crore mission, which has been rescheduled for Monday after scientists corrected the glitch in the rocket, will be launched at 2.43 p.m from the second launchpad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, over 100 km from Chennai.
The nine-second de-orbiting or retro-orbiting manoeuvre was executed at 3.42 am using the onboard propulsion system.
ISRO chairman K Sivan said the proposed soft-landing was going to be a 'terrifying' moment.
The Indian Space Research Organisation has resolved to alight its lander on the lunar surface with Chandrayaan-3 in addition to a maiden solar expedition in 2020.
Somanath thanked all those who prayed for the mission's success, and ISRO veterans like A S Kiran Kumar , the space agency's former chief.
Vikram (with rover 'Pragyan' housed inside) is expected to touch down on the lunar surface on September 7, between 1.30 am and 2.30 am.
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The Sarabhai Crater is around 250 to 300 kilometres east of the crater where the Apollo 17 and Luna 21 Missions had landed.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has snapped a series of images during its flyby on September 17 of Vikram's attempted landing sight near the Moon's uncharted south pole.
The Moon Mineralogy Mapper or M3 has confirmed existence of water on moon by analysing the data collected from Chandrayaan-I.
"We have been able to detect NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Indian Space Research Organisation's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in lunar orbit with ground-based radar," said Marina Brozovic, a radar scientist at JPL and principal investigator for the test project.
The images were captured by the Terrain-Mapping Camera (TMC) on board the 514-kg spacecraft, which is orbiting at 200 km above the lunar surface.
On Thursday, scientists sent the 1,380 kg spacecraft to its next destination -- highly elliptical orbit of 300 km perigee and 1.6 lakh km apogee respectively. This will be followed by three more orbit-transfer exercises.
If any factor regarding the lander module appears unfavourable, then the landing will be shifted to August 27, said the Space Applications Centre-ISRO about Chandrayaan-3 on Monday.
Indian Space Research Organisation will announce a revised launch date later.
Meet Indian Space Research Organisation scientist Ningthoujam Raghu Singh, who was one of the bright sparks responsible for sending Chandrayaan-3 to the moon.
Sivan asserted that though Chandrayaan-2 did not go as per script, it will have no bearing with on the 'Gaganyaan' mission.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), ISRO said, "Chandrayaan-3 Mission. Chandrayaan-3 Rover to MOX, ISTRAC, Moon walk begins!"
If the April launch of the Chandrayaan-2, the country's second mission to the Moon, is not possible, then the ISRO will aim for a launch by October.
Chandrayaan-3 mission's rover 'Pragyan' has traversed a distance of about eight metres on the lunar surface, and its payloads have been turned on, ISRO said on Friday.
According to ISRO officials, Earth bound orbit is a phase during which the spacecraft will remain in the Earth's sphere of influence.
"I remember Chandrayaan-2's launch was earlier scheduled on July 15. I was there in Sriharikota. I saw the massive carrier, 'Bahubali', from close proximity.
He said the ISRO scientists have a very strong spirit of working and will not rest till the objective is met.
Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to the Moon, was launched on October 22, 2008 from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.
Here's some exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage of the moon mission's various components coming together.
The Chandrayaan-2 will conduct the next level of scientific studies on the Moon, writes T E Narasimhan.
After the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon on Wednesday, August 23, Bollywood has joined India to laud ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) and its team for the historic mission.
The players all converged near the dressing room and followed the closing stages of Chandrayaan-3's landing on Moon.
While the historic success of Chandrayaan-3 is celebrated by Indians across the world, two untrumpeted engineering colleges in Kerala are basking in the glory of the key role played by some of their alumni in the crucial Moon mission.
An entire nation waited, praying and hoping fervently, as the countdown to touch down on the moon wound to a slow close on Wednesday with many thousands gathering in schools, places of worship and elsewhere and scientists doing last minute checks to ensure Chandrayaan-3 makes a soft landing on the lunar south pole.
Chandrayaan-3 mission's lander 'Vikram' chose a relatively flat region on the lunar surface to touch down, images captured by its camera showed.
Addressing the scientists hours after ISRO announced that it had lost communication with the lander, he also said that the country's determination to land on the moon has become even stronger.
"I am extremely happy to announce that GSLV Mark III successfully injected Chandrayaan 2 in the defined orbit, infact the orbit is 6,000 km more than what was intended," Sivan said.
Scientists also expressed the hope that any technical problem will be sorted out by ISRO, and the mission will be launched successfully.
In his latest tweet, the 58-year-old actor said the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon's uncharted south pole was a moment of celebration for mankind.
A mission to study the Sun, and launching a climate observation satellite, a test vehicle as part of Gaganyaan human space flight programme and an Indo-US synthetic aperture radar.
Preliminary assessment of data from the LLRI by scientists indicates that the instrument's performance is normal, an ISRO statement said.
Although Russia, United States and China have achieved a soft landing on the lunar surface, India is aiming at becoming the first one to explore the south pole of the Moon.
The ISRO on Monday released images of the Lunar far side area captured by the Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC).
During this manoeuvre, Chandrayaan-1 entered a much higher elliptical orbit around the Earth. The apogee (farthest point to Earth) of this orbit lies at 1,64,600 km while the perigee (nearest point to Earth) is at 348 km. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about 73 hours to go round the Earth once.
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