Chandrayaan 2: Moon mission aims for a historical victory

Within a few hours, Chandrayaan 2 landing module “Vikram” will begin its final descent to pull off a historic soft landing on the lunar surface. If everything goes as planned, after Russia, the US and China, it is India, that will be in the fourth place to do the feat. But India will be the first country to launch a mission to the unexplored lunar south pole.

‘Vikram’ is scheduled for a powered-descent between 1 am and 2 am on September 7, followed by its touchdown between 1.30 am and 2.30 am. It has rover ‘Pragyaan’ housed inside. According to ISRO, Chandrayaan 2 will attempt to soft land the lander and rover in a high plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of about 70 south.

Speaking about the issue, ISRO Chairman K Sivan called it as a terrifying moment, as the ISRO has not done it before. He said that it takes 15 minutes to land on the surface of the moon.

“This 15 minutes travel of lander is new to ISRO. It is for the first time we are going to another body where there is no atmosphere and using the propulsion system we will have to break the velocity and bring the vehicle safely to soft land. To achieve this we will have to balance between the gravity and thrust. So we have to modulate the thrust of the engine,” Sivan said.

After its landing, the rover ‘Pragyaan’ will roll out from ‘Vikram’ between 5.30 am and 6.30 am. It will conduct the experiments on the lunar surface for 14 days and the main orbiter will continue its mission for a year. Both the lander and rover carry India’s symbols on them, which will remain on the moon for long.

Revealing about the unexplored South Pole, Sivan said that the lunar surface area here that remains in shadow is much larger than that at the North Pole. So there is a possibility of the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it.

According to ISRO, the objective of Chandrayaan 2 is to develop the key technologies for end-to-end lunar mission capability, including soft-landing and roving on the lunar surface.

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