India’s Lunar Mission: Chandrayaan-2

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has called off the Chandrayaan-2 at the last movement since technical snags were noticed while fuelling the rocket with cryogenic fuel.

About the Mission

• Chandrayaan-2 Mission is India’s first moon lander and rover mission.
• ISRO will be soft-landing the lander at the lunar craft in the south pole – a region where no agency has got to so far.
• The lander Vikram (which means valour and named after the father of the Indian space programme, Vikram Sarabhai) will release a small robotic rover, named Pragyan (wisdom) for moving around to feel and understand the lunar surface.
• The orbiter that carries Vikram and Pragyan will go around the moon at a distance of about 100 km, taking pictures and gathering surface information and sending them back to earth.
• The mission would also be carrying 14 payloads or instruments to observe and gauge the lunar scene both from a distance and on its surface which includes a tiny NASA reflectometer to mark the spot for future missions and assess the distance from the earth.

Chandrayaan-1 had the Moon Impact Probe which made a crash-landing. Chandrayaan-2, on the other hand, is meant to make a soft landing.

Chandrayaan-1 provided for irrefutable evidence of water on the Moon which was elusive for more than four decades. Chandrayaan-2 will take it forward by trying to assess the abundance and distribution of water on the surface.