Do you think Chandrayaan-2 mission will offer better insights than the first one?
Chandrayaan-2 mission has taken a long time to materialize. ISRO or the Indian Space Research Organization has finally announced the date of Chandrayaan-2 mission to moon on July 15, 2019. The lander and rover will finally touch the surface of the moon on September 5 or 6. Chandrayaan-2 was originally slated to be launched in 2012 which was at that in collaboration with the Russian space, Roskosmos. Latter was tasked to provide the lander module. Russia withdrew from the mission when a similarly designed module had caused problems in some other mission. It was then left on ISRO to develop the lander after designing.
Chandrayaan-2 is seen as a logical progressor of Chandrayaan-1 but is way more sophisticated than the latter. It consists of a Lander, a rover and an Orbiter. It is equipped with many instruments to study the surface of the moon. It is stated that the Orbiter will again watch the moon from a 100-km orbit. The Lander and the Rover will make individual entry and a soft-landing. The lander which has been developed is named as Vikram after Vikram Sarabhai. He was the pioneer of the Space Programme of India. Rover has been named as Pragyaan which means wisdom. The Rover will detach from the lander and crawl on the surface of the moon to make observations and collect data. The Lander will continue to remain stationary after touching down the surface. Although the lander and the rover will only operate for 14 days, the Orbiter which is equipped with multiple cameras will continue to remain in orbit for a year. Chandrayaan-2 will make a landing on the far side of the moon near the South pole.