India to launch craft to moon Monday

CHENNAI, India — India’s space agency said it will launch a spacecraft to the south pole of the moon on Monday after stopping an attempt this week.

The Indian Space Research Organization said the Chandrayaan-2 launch is now set at 2:43 p.m. on Monday. It said Thursday that the cause of the previous technical snag had been identified and corrected.

Chandrayaan, the Sanskrit word for “moon craft,” is designed to land on the lunar south pole and send a rover to explore water deposits that were confirmed by a previous mission that orbited the moon.

Dr. K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, said that the around $140 million Chandrayaan-2 mission was the nation’s most prestigious to date, in part because of the technical complexities of landing on the lunar surface — an event he described as

“15 terrifying minutes.”

If India did manage the landing, it would be only the fourth country to do so after the U.S., Russia and China.

Trump directed Bridenstine to listen to the “other side.”

Aldrin and Armstrong, who died in 2012, landed on the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 p.m. on July 20, 1969. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” Armstrong radioed.

Armstrong was the first to climb down the ladder, stepping onto the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. His “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” is arguably the most famous space line of all time.

Pence at Space Center

The vice president is commemorating Saturday’s anniversary at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, visiting the launch pad where Apollo 11 blasted off.

Museums and towns across the country geared up for their own golden anniversary celebrations, including Wapakoneta, Ohio, Armstrong’s hometown that was serving up “cinnamoon pancakes” and “buckeye on the moon sundaes.” The U.S. Postal Service, meanwhile, issued its “1969: First Moon Landing” Forever stamps Friday at Kennedy.

NASA televised a two-hour show Friday afternoon remembering Apollo 11 but also looking forward to its future moon plans. At the end of the program, Bridenstine revealed the new logo for the moon program, called Artemis after the twin sister of Greek mythology’s Apollo.

Besides Wapakoneta and Kennedy, the program went live to Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to Mission Control; the U.S. Space and Rocket Center next door to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

In Houston, Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham said the moon landings will be remembered hundreds of years from now and Armstrong, in particular, will go down in history.

“Here we are 50 years later, and I never in my life could have projected this amount of interest and association with what we were doing back then,” Cunningham said.

In Wapakoneta, former astronaut Don Thomas recalled how he invited fellow Ohioan Armstrong to one of his four space shuttle launches in the 1990s. Not only did Armstrong show up, Thomas said the moonwalker met with him the day before liftoff and promised to stick around as long as it took the shuttle to fly.

“It was the thrill of my life to have him there for the launch,” Thomas said.