India’s lander mission to moon Chandrayaan-2 is all set to take off tomorrow afternoon, at 2.43 pm. Initially, it will be carried in an earth-centric elliptical orbit by the rocket GSLV-Mark-Three.
From there, it will be made to escape out of the earth’s gravity by burning the engines onboard Chandrayaan-2. Later, it will be taken on a lunar trajectory and ed into a 100-km circular orbit around the moon.
It will be followed by the descending of the lander in slow motion on the lunar surface and the rover’s scientific expedition on its terrain.
The countdown for the mission is expected to begin this evening in the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, some ninety kilometres off Chennai.
Originally it was scheduled to lift off early in the morning on July 15th. However, an anomaly in the cryogenic upper stage of the launch vehicle has been detected less than an hour before its ignition, and the mission was aborted temporarily.
After finding the cause of the snag and swiftly plugging it, the launch has been rescheduled for tomorrow. India would be the fourth country to have a soft-landing on the moon once the mission objectives are reached.
The place where the lander Vikram is to land on the lunar South Pole is known to be uncharted territory. The total cost of the mission is about 978 crore rupees and all the constituents of Chandrayaan-2 including its orbiter, lander and the rover are made indigenously.
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