Chandrayaan-2! A Tricky And Unprecedented Soft Landing To The Moon’s S.pole – ISRO
After tasting the success with the launch of Scramjet rocket, ninth satellite back to back and the launch of Resource sat-2A in 2016, ISRO,Indian Space Research Organisation is gearing up for the most challenging space mission of all times i.e Chandrayaan-2 (Lunar -2) and this time the organisation will leave nothing behind. The Chandrayaan-2 moon mission is scheduled to be launched in this year around April 2018 from the spaceport of Sriharikota.
Unlike the first lunar mission when a PSLV rocket carried the spacecraft Mk II will launch the spacecraft weighing 3,290 kg as the module will carry an orbiter, a rover and a lander to the moon. That will be one of the ambitious vision for India’s second voyage to the moon for this course of time. If Chandrayaan-2 is successful, it will pave the way for even more ambitious Indian missions, such as landings on Mars and asteroid, as well a Venus probe, says the chairman of ISRO.
After reaching the lunar orbit, the Lander housing the rover will separate from the orbiter. The orbiter will reach the moon’s orbit in one to two months. After reaching the moon’s orbit, the lander will get detached from the orbiter and do a soft-landing near the south pole of the moon. The 6-wheeled rover fixed within the lander will get detached and move on the lunar surface. The rover has been designed in a way that it will have power to spend a lunar day or 14 Earth days on the moon’s surface and walk up to 150-200 km. It will do several experiments and on-site chemical analysis of the surface. The rover will then send data and images of the lunar surface back to the Earth through the orbiter within 15 minutes.
