India’s delayed Moon mission lifts off without a hitch
Chandrayaan-2, India’s lunar lander, lifted off on board a rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre yesterday afternoon, a week after the first attempt was called off in the final hour before launch.
India’s unmanned homegrown GSLV-Mark III rocket, standing 43 metres and making its first operational flight, roared into space.
The launch window was narrow – a single minute in which to pitch rocket into the perfect position above the planet. Within half an hour, the rocket released Chandrayaan-2 into Earth’s orbit.
A video showed the spacecraft detaching from the rocket.
After the launch, K Sivan, the head of the Indian Space Research Organisation, thanked his scientists for resolving the problem that led to the cancellation of the previous launch.
“We fixed the snag and bounced back with flying colours,” Mr Sivan said. “The work done in the 24 hours after the snag [was discovered] was mind boggling. Corrections were made, tests were done and confirmed.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who watched the launch in Delhi on a live feed, congratulated Isro on the successful start to a mission that was “Indian in heart, Indian in spirit!”
What will enthuse every Indian, he said, “is the fact that #Chandrayaan2 is a fully indigenous mission”. Such projects “will further encourage our bright youngsters towards science, top-quality research and innovation”.
Chandrayaan-2 will make its way towards the south pole of the Moon, where no country has sent a lander.
After a week in transit, Chandrayaan-2 will orbit the Moon for two weeks before the lander, named Vikram, detaches and touches down. If the mission succeeds, India will become only the fourth country, after the US, Russia and China, to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
The landing is scheduled for early September, about the time that a Moon day, which lasts 14 Earth days, begins. That will allow maximum sunlight for a six-wheeled, solar-powered rover, named Pragyan, to move across the Moon’s surface at the rate of a centimetre a second to test lunar soil and take photographs.
An Isro official told the Hindustan Times that the week’s delay in launch would not significantly cut short the rover’s time in lunar daylight.
Although the transit has increased by two days, the official said, shrinking the duration spent orbiting the Moon will give the rover enough time to do its work.