Chandrayaan 2 To Launch In July, Marking India’s Second Moon Mission

10 years ago, with the first Chandrayaan mission, India wrote its name in record books. One of the mission’s objectives was to detect whether water existed on the moon surface or not. With bigger dreams to achieve and several delays later, finally, the Chandrayaan 2 will be launched later this year. Below are things you should know about India’s second moon mission.

The Chandrayaan 2 mission was actually scheduled to launch last year but the vehicle’s further tests and configuration changes delayed the launch date several times. This time, ISRO announces that the final launch is in July, based on the weather conditions, it can be somewhere between July 9 to 16. The landing will probably fall on Sep 6.

There are three modules included in the mission: a lander, an orbiter, and a rover, all of which will be built in India. Once the launch is successfully completed, the lander will detach from the orbiter and make a soft landing on the surface of the moon. The touchdown location has already been chosen to be close to the moon’s south pole. To date, no other country has studied this particular part of the moon. By being the first country to explore this area, not only India will be on the space exploration map but also get the chance to name the location.

The lander and the orbiter will be launched aboard the Launch Vehicle Mark 3 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre located in Sriharikota. There are specific experiments for each module to execute.

After landing, the Pragyan rover will travel for around 300 to 400 meters on the moon. The rover was supposedly designed by Russia but the efforts proved to be unsuccessful. ISRO then designed and built it themselves while the vehicle’s mobility subsystems were developed by IIT Kanpur.

If the launch is carried out successfully, India will officially be the fourth nation made it to the moon, following China, Russia, and the U.S. Last month, Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft mission almost succeeded but due to some difficulties, it crashed onto the lunar surface.

After each test, the Chandrayaan 2 will report back to Earth. According to estimation, the mission will last for about 15 days for the rover and the lander, while for the orbiter, it will be a year-long mission. If this mission proves to be as successful as the previous one, it will be an exceptional achievement for India.