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India is about to make its biggest jump on the moon, with the mission of landing at the lunar south pole.
As the world prepares for the 50th anniversary of NASA's landmark landing on NASA's historic landing in July, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch an ambitious triple mission to the nearest neighbor of the Earth. The mission, called Chandrayaan-2, is scheduled to begin on July 14 at 5:51 pm HAE (21:51 GMT).
Chandrayaan-2 will launch at the top of a rocket Mark III M1 (the most powerful Indian booster) satellite launch satellite launcher, from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, where the local takeoff time will be from 15:51 on the 15th of July. The country's first lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, launched in 2008, this new spacecraft will not be alone.
Related: The long lost lunar probe from India found by NASA's radar
Artist illustration depicting the Indian Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram, and his Pragyan rover on the moon's surface, near the lunar south pole.
(Image: © Indian Space Research Organization)
This diagram from the Indian Space Organization shows the flight profile of the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft on its flight to the Moon between July and September 2019.
(Image: © Indian Space Research Organization)
This ISRO chart details the main components of the Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission in India.
(Image: © ISRO via Twitter)
Chandrayaan-2 will include an orbiter, a lander and a rover who will collaborate to study the moon from above and from its surface. Chandrayaan means "Moon Craft" in Sanskrit and is the name of ISRO's global exploration moon project, Chandrayaan-2 being the second mission of this program.
The Chandrayaan-2 lander named Vikram in honor of Indian scientist Vikram Sarabhai, nicknamed the "father of the Indian space program," who died in 1971, officials said. ISRO in a description of the mission. The rover is called Pragyan, or "Wisdom" in Sanskrit.
The targeted landing site of the Indian Chandrayaan-2 mission to explore the lunar south pole.
(Image: © Indian Space Research Organization)
After its launch, Chandrayaan-2 will spend about 16 days orbiting the Earth, slowly rising over time before heading to the moon, the Times of India reported. It will take about five days for the mission to reach the moon, after which Chandryaan-2 will spend 27 days in lunar orbit before releasing the Vikram Lander.
If all goes well, Vikram will land near the south pole of the moon on September 6th, in a 15 minute landing sequence, an ISRO official said.
"The 15-minute operation – during which Vikram will perform the final descent and the soft lands – will be the most terrifying as we have never attempted such a complex mission," said the president of the ISRO K Sivan at a press conference on June 11, according to the Times. from India.
The solar-powered Vikram is expected to deploy the small Pragyan rover about four hours after landing. Together, the LG and the Rover are designed to last about a lunar day (14 Earth days) on the surface of the moon, while the Chandrayaan-2 launcher continues its mission for a year, according to an overview of the moon. 39; ISRO.
Chandrayaan-2 will carry 13 different scientific instruments to study the moon. They include eight payloads of remote observation on the orbiter, three on the LG and two on the mobile.
One of the payloads of the LG is a NASA experiment called "Laser Reflector" for lunar devices, a mirror-like device designed to reflect laser signals that can be used to locate the Vikram LG and measure distance. between the Earth and the Moon. NASA has incorporated a similar reflector on the Israeli lunar lander Beresheet, which crashed during a lunar landing attempt failed in April.
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