The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday, 12 June, announced India’s ambitious second moon mission – Chandrayaan 2 – will launch on 15 July.
“Chandrayaan-2 mission will be launched on 15 July at 2:51am,” said K Sivan, chairman of ISRO.
On Wednesday, ISRO unveiled the spacecraft at Bengaluru’s ISRO Satellite Integration And Test Establishment. According to officials in Bengaluru, these components will be moved out of the Bengaluru by 20 June to Sriharikota.
The mission will have 13 payloads and one passive experiment from American space agency NASA. The 3.8-tonne spacecraft has three components – an Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan).
ISRO has finished the final phase of the project, where the integration of the components have been undertaken.
The moon landing will be on 6 September. Initially, the Orbiter will orbit 100 km from the lunar surface, following which the Lander (Vikram) will do the soft landing near the south pole of the Moon, and the Rover (Pragyan) will be operationalised to undertake the experiment.
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