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The 143-foot (43.5-meter) rocket that will send the Chandrayaan 2 lunar mission to India on Sunday arrived Sunday on its launch pad on the Indian east coast.
The Mk.3 geosynchronous satellite launcher, or GSLV Mk.3, is due to take off at 21:21 GMT (17:21 EDT) Sunday from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, India's spaceport on the coast with the Bay of Bengal to about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Chennai.
The launch is scheduled at 02:51 local time Monday in India.
The GSLV Mk.3 is the most powerful launcher in India. Indian Space Agency officials canceled last year the launch of the Chandrayaan 2 mission on the weaker GSLV Mk.2 rocket, after the spacecraft's mass surpassed the original objectives of the mission.
The Indian launcher and the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft bound for the moon left the Vehicle Assembly Building on July 7 at the space base located on the island of Sriharikota, on a mobile platform for the journey to the second ramp launch.
The deployment took place after the technicians stacked the launcher components on the mobile launch platform inside the assembly building, then covered the rocket with the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft, a three-in-one mission consisting of an orbiter module, a landing craft and a rover that will deploy from the lander after landing on the lunar surface.
Assuming the mission takes off on Sunday, two days before the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the spacecraft is expected to arrive in orbit around the moon in early August, followed by the landing of the landing gear. the orbit for the final descent and the September landing. 6
India is looking to become the fourth country to reach a soft landing on the moon, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China. According to the Indian Space Research Organization, the Chandrayaan 2 mission cost about $ 142 million for the design, development and launch, including the cost of the rocket and spacecraft.
Since the arrival of the rocket on the launch pad, the ISRO launch team in Sriharikota conducted two launch rehearsals, carried out end-to-end checks of the rocket, connected pyrotechnic pieces used for in-flight separations and GSLV Mk control system controls. The first step of .3.
The launch team also pressurized rocket propellant tanks for fuel preparation.
The GSLV Mk.3 rocket will take off, propelled by two powerful 86-foot-long S200 thrusters (26.2 meters), generating a combined boost of 2.2 million pounds. A main stage driven by two Vikas engines running on hydrazine will turn on at T + plus 1 minute and 50 seconds, then will be exhausted and separated from the strap boosters approximately 30 seconds later.
Each of the S200 solid fuel boosters will consume more than 225 tonnes (205 tonnes) of pre-packaged solid propellants.
The two Vikas engines ran until about T + 5 minutes, 15 seconds, and then gave way to a cryogenic upper stage powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to place the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft on a elliptical transfer orbit at 23,000 miles (38,000 kilometers) above the Earth.
Chandrayaan 2's onboard engines will propel the spacecraft into higher orbits before freeing themselves from Earth's gravitational pull and heading for the Moon, where it will enter orbit in early August.
The orbiter will direct the solar space shuttle to a circular orbit around the 100 km high (100 km) moon during a series of maneuvers in August, setting the stage for landing separation and final descent. early September.
The three components of the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft each carry a suite of scientific instruments:
- orbiter
- Mass: 5,244 pounds (2,379 kilograms)
- Power: 1000 watts
- The description: The Chandrayaan 2 Orbiter, designed for a one-year mission, contains eight scientific instruments, including a high-resolution stereo camera, a synthetic aperture bi-frequency radar for lunar poles, a spectrometer Infrared imaging helps in the search for water and sensors to study the tenuous atmosphere of the moon. The orbiter will also provide data relay services to the Vikram Lander.
- Vikram Lander
- Mass: 3,243 pounds (1,471 kilograms)
- Power: 650 watts
- The description: The Target Landing Area of the Vikram Landing is located in a mountainous area on the near-moon side, at approximately 70.9 degrees south latitude, closer to the south pole of the moon than any lunar landing mission earlier. Vikram will use five liquid throttle engines to slow down his landing. The landing craft features a series of multiple cameras and three scientific instruments, including a seismometer, a thermal probe that can reach a maximum depth of 10 meters (33 feet) to measure the vertical temperature gradient in the lunar crust, as well as sensors. to study plasma near the surface of the moon, and a network of laser retroreflectors provided by NASA to help scientists locate the exact position of the LG on the moon. The Vikram Lander is designed to last 14 days on the moon, which equates to a lunar day.
- Rover Pragyan
- Mass: 59 pounds (27 kilograms)
- Power: 50 watts
- The description: The solar-powered Pragyan rover has a range of up to 500 meters during its 14-day moon mission. The AI-compatible mobile has six wheels and will transmit scientific data and images via a radio link with the Vikram Lander. Indian scientists have installed an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to measure the elemental composition of rocks at the Chandrayaan 2 landing site, as well as a laser-induced fragmentation spectroscope. The Pragyan rover is named for the Sanskrit word meaning "wisdom".
The launch of Chandrayaan 2 will mark the first operational flight of the GSLV Mk.3 Indian rocket, following a suborbital test flight in 2014 and two successful orbital demonstration missions in 2017 and 2018.
The Indian authorities have chosen GSLV Mk.3 for the country's manned space flight program, which aims to send two or three astronauts into orbit aboard a spacecraft built by the Indians by the end of 2021.
The photos below show the Sunday deployment of the GSLV Mk.3 from the assembly building in Sriharikota.
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