India to launch lunar mission on July 14
New Delhi, Jul 6 (EFE).- The Indian Space Research Organization announced on Thursday that its Chandrayaan-3 space mission, the second attempt by the country to land on the unexplored south pole of the Moon, would now be launched on Jul. 14 after being delayed by a day.
The launch, earlier scheduled for the early hours of Jul. 13, is now set to take place at 2.35 pm on Jul 14 at the Sriharikota Range, also known as the Satish Dhawan Space Center, a rocket launch facility situated in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, ISRO announced on Twitter.
Chandrayaan-3 is the continuation of the Chandrayaan-2 mission that took off on Jul. 22, 2019 and was put into Moon’s orbit successfully but turned out to be a failure as the Indian space agency lost contact with the lunar probe on the morning of Sep. 6, around 20 minutes after the landing procedure was initiated.
According to ISRO, the fault developed due to technical issues linked to reduction of speed while landing.
The new mission will also include a landing module and an explorer, but unlike its predecessor, it would not carry an orbiter.
Had it been successful, Chandrayaan-2 would have turned India into the fourth member of a small group of nations to have landed on the Moon, after Russia, the United States and China, and the first to touch down on the south pole of the satellite.
With the new mission, Indian scientists hope to discover more about the mineral composition of the Moon and explore the possible presence of water.
The first mission in the series was Chandrayaan-1, which was put in the lunar orbit in November 2008, but did not attempt a landing.
India has one of the most active space programs in the world and began to send satellites in Earth’s orbit in 1999.
Its missions to the Moon and Mars, as well as the cost-effective launching of dozens of satellites in one go, has led to several countries signing deals with the Indian space agency to put their small-size satellites into orbit. EFE
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