Chandrayaan-2 lifts off successfully, gets a step closer to moon.
India on Monday successfully launched its lander-rover mission to Earth's only natural satellite. GSLV-MkIII, carrying the Chandrayaan-2 module on its tip, lifted off at 2.43pm without a glitch and released the lunar craft to its desired geo-transfer orbit after 15 minutes. Unlike July 15 when a glitch in the cryo upper stage of the rocket led to stalling of the launch, this time it was a textbook launch as thousands of spectators at the viewers' gallery here cheered the thunderous liftoff of Indian Space Research Organisation's (Isro) 'Bahubali' on a cloudy day from the second launchpad.
Though the launch has been delayed by a week, Isro chairman K Sivan
told that "Vikram lander will soft land on Moon on September 6-7 as initially planned" despite the fact that the number of days of the mission has been curtailed from 54 days to 48 days.
Chandrayaan-2 will remain in Earth's elliptical orbit for around 22 days when five orbit-raising manoeuvres will be conducted to move it away from Earth's gravitational pull. Thereafter, the lunarcraft will be moved into trans lunar injection (TLI) on the 23rd day for its onward journey to the lunar orbit during which it will travel a distance of 3,84,000km from Earth to Moon. After eight days, the Chandrayaan-2 team, led by project director M Vanitha and mission director Ritu Karidhal, will oversee the lunar orbit insertion, the next most challenging part of the country's second moon mission. This part of the mission deals with slowing the speed of the lunarcraft so that it gets captured by Moon's gravity to help it enter the lunar orbit.
Chandrayaan-2 is loaded with 13 payloads that will do a detailed study of topography, seismography, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition, thermo-physical characteristics of top soil and composition of the tenuous lunar atmosphere for a new understanding of the origin and evolution of Moon.
