India’s unmanned lunar mission that will land on the South Pole of the moon — a first for any nation — will be successful in its second offered on Monday, said the space agency director, seven days after a technical snag put off the first attempt of the launch at the last hour.
“The technical snag we had observed on July 15 has been corrected. The vehicle is in good condition; the rehearsal has gone well too,” K Sivan, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation, told reporters on Sunday. “Tests were conducted for 1.5 days to ensure the same snag does not recur. There are no chances of it happening again.”
ET a week ago revealed that a drop in pressure in one of the tanks in the upper stage of the geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle mark 3 or GSLV-Mk-3 led researchers to cancel the launch.
The indigenously created GSLV-Mk-3 is India’s most dominant rocket and can carry a 4-tonne satellite 36,000 km above earth. The Chandrayaan-2 mission — the rocket with an orbiter, lander and rover — weighs 3.8 tonne.
Chandrayaan-2 is planned for launch at 2.43 pm on Monday from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.
“The soft landing will take place at a point where no spacecraft has landed—the South Pole of the moon. This means the scientific findings will be new and unique.” said Sivan.
The Rs 978-crore Chandrayaan-2 Project will launch India into a club of countries that have successfully landed rocket on the moon — the US, Russia and China. Additionally, India will make huge discoveries about the origin of the moon, its elements composition, and all the more significantly, approve introductory discoveries of the Chandrayaan-1 mission about the presence of water on the moon.
The 640-tonne GSLV-Mk-3, on its first operational flight, will place Chandrayaan-2 in the earth parking orbit (EPO) around 16.2 minutes after take-off.
