Chandrayaan 2 : ISRO Successfully launched India's 2nd Moon Mission

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched India's second Moon mission 'Chandrayaan-2' from Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh at 2:43 pm today. This is world's first-ever mission aimed towards a soft landing on the Moon's south polar region. The Rs 978-crore second lunar mission comes 11 years after India launched Chandrayaan 1 in 2008. India's most powerful launcher GSLV MkIII-M1 was assigned to carry Chandrayaan-2 to its designated orbit. After around 20 minutes of liftoff, the GSLVMkIII-M1 successfully injected Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft into Earth Orbit.

Aim of Chandrayaan 2 : To explore Moon's south-pole by landing a rover. Chandrayaan 2 which is a successor to Chandrayaan 1, will explore things like the presence of water molecules on the Moon and new type of rocks with unique chemical composition.

Chandrayaan-2's lander 'Vikram' will execute the soft landing on the Moon and 'Pragyan' rover will communicate with it. ISRO has named the lander Vikram after father of Indian Space Programme Dr Vikram A Sarabhai. Vikram has been designed to execute a soft landing on the lunar surface. After Vikram's landing, rover Pragyan will roll out and carry out experiments on lunar surface for a period of 1 lunar day which is equal to 14 Earth days.

After the successful launch, ISRO Chief K Sivan said, ISRO bounced back with flying colours after fixing the technical snag. "It's the beginning of a historic journey of India towards Moon and to land at a place near south pole," he added. The mission, initially scheduled for July 15, was suspended due to a technical snag.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter to share pictures of himself watching the launch proceedings of Chandrayaan-2. "The launch of #Chandrayaan2 illustrates the prowess of our scientists and determination of 130 crore Indians to scale new frontiers of science," he tweeted. "What would make every Indian overjoyed is the fact that #Chandrayaan2 is a fully indigenous mission," he further wrote.

According to ISRO, the Vikram lander will land on the Moon on the 48th day of the mission, which begins today (July 22). Chandrayaan 2 is expected to land on the Moon by September 6-7. Once the lander-Vikram lands safely, the rover will roll out and carry out experiments on the lunar surface for one lunar day, which is equal to 14 earth days. ISRO has confirmed that the orbiter will continue its mission for one year.

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