Face of Nation : The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has released new images of Chandrayaan-2 satellite, a week away from its July 14 launch.
Chandrayaan-2 will be India’s first rover and world first expedition to reach Moon’s south polar region.
The cost of the mission is estimated to be over Rs 1000 crore.
The ISRO has released fresh pictures of both the lander and rover, called Vikram and Pragyaan respectively.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch Chandrayaan-2 on July, 14 from Sriharikota. Chandrayaan-2 is India’s second lunar exploration after Chandrayaan-1 which was launched in 2008.
Chandrayaan-2 will be India’s first rover and world’s first expedition to reach Moon’s south polar region.
Chandrayaan-2 will spend at least 16 days orbiting Earth and later moving slowly to the moon. If all goes well then Chandrayaan will land on the moon September 27.
It is expected to make more discoveries similar to Chandrayaan-1, where it had discovered water on the moon, which was later confirmed by NASA in June 2019.
Chandrayaan-2 is India’s second mission to the moon and has three modules — Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan) – to study the moon from above and its surface. The rover is named Pragyan which means ‘Wisdom’ in Sanskrit. Orbiter would have eight payloads, Lander three and Rover two.
Chandrayaan-2 will carry 13 Indian payloads and one passive experiment from NASA. The cost of the mission is estimated to be over Rs 1000 crore. The mission cost of Chandrayaan-2 with regard to the satellite was Rs 603 crore. The cost of GSLV MK III is Rs 375 crore.
Chandrayaan-2 is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was launched about 10 years ago.
Chandrayaan-1 had 11 payloads — five from India, three from Europe, two from the US and one from Bulgaria — and the mission had the credit for discovery of water on the lunar surface.
The 1.4-tonne spacecraft was launched using PSLV and the orbiter had orbited 100 km from the lunar surface.
According to the ISRO, Orbiter, with scientific payloads, would orbit around the moon. Lander would soft land on the moon at a predetermined site and deploy Rover.
The scientific payloads on board Orbiter, Lander and Rover are expected to perform mineralogical and elemental studies of the lunar surface.
The Orbiter and Lander modules would be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an integrated module and accommodated inside the GSLV MK-III launch vehicle. Rover is housed inside Lander.
After the launch into an earth-bound orbit by GSLV MK-III, the integrated module would reach the moon orbit using the orbiter propulsion module and subsequently, Lander would separate from Orbiter and soft land at the predetermined site, close to lunar South Pole, the ISRO said.
Rover would roll out for carrying out scientific experiments on the lunar surface, it said, noting that instruments were also mounted on Lander and Orbiter for carrying out scientific experiments.
