Nation prepares to send rover to moon’s surface
NEW DELHI — India is looking to take a giant leap in its space program and solidify its place among the world’s spacefaring nations with its second unmanned mission to the moon, this one aimed at landing a rover near the unexplored south pole.
The Indian Space Research Organization plans to launch a spacecraft using homegrown technology on Monday, and it is scheduled to touch down on the moon Sept. 6 or 7. The $141 million Chandrayaan2 mission will analyze minerals, map the moon’s surface and search for water.
With India poised to become the world’s fifthlargest economy, the ardently nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is eager to show off the country’s prowess in security and technology.
India successfully testfired an antisatellite weapon in March, which Modi said demonstrated the country’s capacity as a space power alongside the United States, Russia and China. India also plans to send humans into space by 2022, becoming only the fourth nation to do so.
Decades of space research have allowed India to develop satellite, communications and remote sensing technologies that are helping solve everyday problems at home, from forecasting fish migration to predicting storms and floods.
India’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan1, whose name is Sanskrit for “moon craft,” orbited the moon in 2008 and helped confirm the presence of water. In 201314, India put a satellite into orbit around Mars in the nation’s first interplanetary mission.
Some have questioned the expense in a country of 1.3 billion people with widespread poverty and one of the world’s highest child mortality rates.