Chandrayaan-2: ISRO seeks to launch the first rover of this type landing on the south pole of Moon

In what could be a first landing of a vehicle on the South Pole of the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said Friday it was looking to create history by attempting to launch the second Indian lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2. The space agency also said that so far no country has attempted to launch a spacecraft in the South Pole region of Moon.

"Until now, no one has tried to land a rover in the area. This has only been near the equator (of the Moon). We will attempt to launch the Chandrayaan 2 rover in the South Lunar Pole for the first time, "said ISRO President K Sivan, quoted by PTI.

Earlier this week, ISRO informed that the three modules of the upcoming lunar mission – Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan) were under development. The launch is scheduled for July, and the lander must touch the surface of the moon by early September.

ISRO has kept the launch window of the mission aboard the GSLV MK-III rocket from July 9-16 with a scheduled landing of the moon on September 6, Sivan said.

The Orbiter and Lander modules will be mechanically interfaced and assembled as an integrated module and placed inside the launcher. The Rover is housed inside the Lander.

As part of ISRO's Aditya-L1 mission, Sivan announced that scientists are exploring opportunities to learn more about Sun. "To learn more about the Sun's orbit, we will be sending Aditya-L1 in the first half of next year," he said.

The mission aims to observe the solar corona, the outer layers of the Sun.

The satellite would be inserted in an orbit around the L1 (Lagrangian point 1) of the Sun-Earth system, so as to have the advantage of being able to look at the Sun permanently, without occultation or eclipse. The L1 is 1.5 million km from the Earth.