- By James Kuanal
- Fri, 06 Sep 2019 10:31 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: Chandrayaan 2 is all set to land on the moon surface at around 1.30-2.30 am on Saturday morning. By doing so, it will complete the 48-day long expedition to the south polar region of the lunar surface to carry out its experiments.
The main objective of Chandrayaan 2 is to demonstrate its potential to soft-land on Moon and operate a robotic rover on the surface. Scientific goals include lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, the lunar exosphere, and signatures of hydroxyl and water ice.
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Following Chandrayaan 2 landing, the rover 'Pragyan' will roll out from lander 'Vikram' and carry out experiments on the lunar surface for a period of one lunar day, which is equal to 14 earth days. The mission life of the lander is also one lunar day, while the orbiter would continue its mission for a year.
Chandrayaan 2 is being led by women scientists. Muthayya Vanitha has worked on the mission as project director. An electronic systems engineer, she was also associated with ISRO’s Mars mission.
Mission Director Ritu Karidhal will navigate the module towards the moon.
India had earlier missed the 9-16 July launch window, it was left with a very slimmest of slots where even a minute’s delay would have been impacted the mission and outcome, ISRO took a calculator risk rather than postponing it by around a month.
ISRO will get an opportunity to name the unexplored side of the moon.
India will become the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to make a soft landing on the moon.
Indian scientists plan to map the distribution of water on the moon. The mission module is carrying as many as 13 payloads.
Chandrayaan 2 weighs around 3.8 tonnes and a total estimated cost of Rs 978 crore.
The spacecraft has been designed indigenously by Indian scientists by contributions from various research institutions as well.
It will pave path for GSLV Mk-III, which will be India’s first manned mission to space.