India’s mission to the moon has blasted into space one week after a technical glitch forced scientists to abruptly halt its scheduled launch.
Thousands gathered to watch Chandrayaan-2 takeoff at 2.43pm local time (0913 GMT) on Monday from Satish Dhawan space centre in Sriharikota, north of Chennai. It will travel to the little-explored south pole of the moon.
Chandrayaan-2, which will travel to the little-explored south pole of the moon, launched at 2.43pm local time (0913 GMT) on Monday from Satish Dhawan space centre in Sriharikota, north of Chennai. Thousands gathered and cheered as the
Last Monday, the mission was aborted 56 minutes from takeoff. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) blamed a “technical snag”. Isro later tweeted that Chandrayaan-2 was “stronger than ever before” and “ready to take a billion dreams to the Moon” on its rescheduled launch on 22 July.
Chandrayaan-2 aims to become the first mission to conduct a surface landing on the lunar south pole region, where it will collect crucial information about the moon’s composition. It would be India’s first surface landing on the moon – a feat previously achieved by only Russia, the US and China.
The $141m (£113m) mission is a “demonstration of the growing sophistication of India’s space power,” said Dr Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, head of the nuclear and space policy initiative at the Observer Research Foundation thinktank in Delhi.
India launched its first lunar probe in 2008, and guided a spacecraft into orbit around Mars in 2014.
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In March, India’s nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced the country had successfully shot down one of its own satellites with a missile. Though celebrated by Modi as breakthrough for India’s national security, the missile test was criticised by Nasa for creating hundreds of pieces of orbital debris and threatening astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The launch of Chandrayaan-2 follows the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, and comes amid renewed interest in returning to the moon among states and private industry. In January China landed the Chang’e 4 spacecraft on the previously unexplored far side of the moon, while in April the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet, the first privately funded mission to the moon, crashed after an apparent engine failure. Donald Trump has also said he wants to put astronauts back on the moon by 2024.
Chandrayaan-2, whose name is Sanskrit for “moon craft”, is India’s most ambitious space mission yet. Its first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, helped confirm the presence of water on the moon, but did so without landing on the lunar surface. Kailasavadivoo Sivan, chairman of ISRO, said carrying out a soft landing will be “15 terrifying minutes”.
At the forefront of the Chandrayaan-2 mission are two women. It’s project director Muthayya Vanitha, an electronics system engineer, was named by science journal Nature as one of five scientists to watch in 2019. It is also being navigated by Ritu Karidhal, who helped lead India’s Mars mission in 2014.
The four-tonne spacecraft has a lunar orbiter, a lander and a rover that will be deployed in early September. The rover, named Pragyan which means “wisdom” in Sanskrit, will spend two weeks traversing the moon’s surface. The six-wheeled vehicle will collect crucial information about the mineral and chemical composition of the lunar surface, and search for water.
As well as Chandrayaan-2, India has said it aims to send three astronauts into space by 2022.
Source – .theguardian
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