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In Depth - Chandrayaan 2 | The Journey

Introduction

India stands on the cusp of making history between 1 am and 2 am tonight. Mission Chandrayaan-2's landing module 'Vikram' will start its final descent to touch down on the lunar surface. ISRO scientists are calling this the most "terrifying moments" of the nearly 3- long Mission. A successful landing will make India the fourth country after Russia, the US and China to achieve a soft landing on the moon. India will also be the first to launch a mission to the unexplored . Prime Minister Narendra Modi will watch this part of the mission with 60 to 70 high school students from the ISRO centre in Bengaluru. The spectacular journey of ISRO's Chandrayaan 2 mission started on 22nd July. With the launch of the three-part carrying a lunar orbiter, , and rover on a moon bound trajectory.

Chandrayaan 2 – India’s second Lunar Mission

 Chandrayaan 2 is an Indian lunar mission that will explore the Moon’s south polar region. No country has ever gone there before.  The will be carrying an orbiter, a rover named and a lander named Vikram.  Chandrayaan 2 mission was launched on 22 July 2019 and is expected to land on the moon on Sep 7, 2019. The mission life of Orbiter will be one year whereas the mission life of lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) will be one Lunar day which is equal to fourteen earth days.

Objective of the Mission

The primary objective of Chandrayaan-2 is to demonstrate the ability to soft-land on the lunar surface and operate a robotic rover on the surface. Scientific goals include studies of lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, the lunar exosphere, and signatures of hydroxyl and water ice.

Chandrayaan 1 v/s Chandrayaan 2

The Chandrayaan 1 mission was launched in October 2008 and was active in operations until August 2009. The mission included a lunar orbiter and an impactor. The Chandrayaan 1 mission was launched using the PSLV-XL , serial number C11 from the Space Centre located in Sriharikota.

Chandrayaan 2 mission was launched from Sriharikota Space Center on 22 July 2019 to the Moon by a Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III). It includes a lunar orbiter, lander and rover, all developed domestically. The main scientific objective is to map the location and abundance of .

Unlike Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to soft-land its Vikram module on the lunar surface and deploy a six-wheeled Rover, Pragyaan on the Moon to carry out several scientific experiments. The lift-off mass of Chandrayaan-1 was 1380 kg while Chandrayaan-2 weighs 3850 kg.

GSLV Mk-III:

 Developed by ISRO, the Geosynchronous Mark-III is a three-stage vehicle.  Primarily designed to launch communication into geostationary orbit.  It has a mass of 640 tonnes that can accommodate up to 8,000 kg payload to LEO and 4000 kg payload to GTO.  GSLV Mk-III vehicle is powered by two solid motor strap-ons (S200), a liquid propellant core stage (L110) and a cryogenic stage (C25), that has been designed for carrying the four-tonne class satellites.  The C25 is powered by CE-20, India’s largest cryogenic engine, designed and developed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre.

Why the south polar region of the moon?

According to ISRO, the lunar south pole is an interesting surface area, which remains in shadow as compared to the north pole. There is a possibility of the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it, the agency said, adding craters in the south pole region have cold traps and contain fossil records of the early .

Challenges

Challenges involved in the moon landing are identifying trajectory accurately; taking up deep space communication; trans-lunar injection, orbiting around the moon, taking up soft landing on the moon surface, and facing extreme temperatures and vacuum.