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Mission Chandrayaan 2

 



ISRO says that the Chandrayaan 2 mission was 90-95 percent successful

Date and time of launch of the Chandrayaan-2 Mission: The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch Chandrayaan-2, its second spacecraft, to the moon at 2:51 am on July 15 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. The aim of this mission is to land a rover near the unexplored South Pole. There is a risk of the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it, according to ISRO. In addition, South Pole region has craters that are cold traps and contain a fossil record of the early Solar System, it said.

The ‘Baahubali’ launcher

The task to throttle Chandrayaan into space lies on the shoulder of 'Baahubali'-the heaviest and most powerful launcher to date in the world. The Mark III Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) is a three-stage, ISRO-developed heavy-lift launch vehicle. There are two powerful strap-ons in the vehicle, a core liquid booster and a cryogenic upper stage.


The rocket is designed to move 4 tons of satellites into the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) or about 10 tons into the Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Final launch tests at the barrier island off the coast of the Bay of Bengal are currently under way.

Once launched into an orbit of 170 x 40400 km, a sequence of maneuvers to lift its orbit will be carried out and Chandrayaan-2 will be placed on the Lunar Transfer Trajectory. The on-board thrusters would slow down the Lunar Capture spacecraft upon entering the moon's sphere of influence. A series of orbital maneuvers will circularize the orbit of Chandrayaan-2 around the moon to an orbit of 100-100 km, ISRO says.

The Rs 1,000-crore mission, Chandrayaan-2, consists of an Orbiter, a Lander and a Rover, all fitted with scientific tools to explore the moon. After Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of India's space program, the space agency has named the Lander module Vikram and the Rover module Pragyaan, meaning wisdom.


Chandrayaan-2's primary mission was to demonstrate the soft landing of the 'Vikram' lander on the Moon's South Pole, run Pragyan's robotic rover on the lunar surface, and obtain exciting images and data.

The contact link snapped with Vikram on September 7, during the last minutes of descent, when it was about 2.1 kms from the surface of the moon. The ISRO confirmed, after three days, the sighting of Vikram via images beamed by the Orbiter.

Destination—Moon’s uncharted territory

With Chandrayaan-2, India will only become the fourth country on the Moon to land a spacecraft. So far, all landings, both human and non-human, have been in locations near to the moon's equator.


Chandrayaan-2 is expected to make a landing near the south pole of the Moon at a place where no previous mission has passed. The unexplored territory provides a chance to find something new for the mission.

The region has a broad probability of water being present. In addition, it is often said that this particular area has ancient rocks and craters that can give signs of the past of the Moon and also provide clues to the early solar system's fossil records.

The landing

ISRO is attempting to soft-land a module in extra-terrestrial space for the first time. Once again, the Orbiter will observe the moon from a 100-km orbit, while the Lander and Rover modules separate and make a soft landing on the surface of the moon.

After touching down, the 1471-kg lander will remain stationary and will hold three instruments which will primarily study the atmosphere of the moon. The speed of the Lander just ahead of touchdown should be 1 m/s (3.6 km/h) or less in order to allow a smooth landing.

Seismic activity on the lunar surface will also be looked out for by one of the instruments.

The Orbiter, a 2379-kg spacecraft with seven instruments on board, would remain in orbit for a year while the lander and the 6-wheeled, AI-powered rover were planned to operate for just 14 days (1 lunar day). The orbiter is also fitted with several types of cameras capable of taking high resolution three-dimensional maps of the moon surface.







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