Chandrayaan-2 to be launched on Monday at 2.43 pm: ISRO

India's space agency said that it would launch the country's second lunar mission at 2:43 pm on that day

India's most ambitious moon mission, Chandrayaan-2 will now be launched at 2.43 pm on July 22 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) made this official announcement in a tweet.

After calling off the launch in the early hours of July 15, Isro has been quick to rectify the Helium leak and other system faults in the cryogenic engine of the GSLV Mk III, the rocket launcher carrying the Chandrayaan-2 mission to the moon.

In a tweet on Thursday afternoon, Isro announced: "Chandrayaan-2 launch, which was called off due to a technical snag on July 15, 2019, is now rescheduled at 2:43 pm IST on Monday, July 22, 2019. "This comes days after Isro's last tweet attributing the suspension of the previous launch due to a glitch without elaborating.

July 15 had offered the most comfortable launch window of 10 minutes for the Mission. A one-minute window is available every day till July 31. Isro has managed to successfully launch several satellites within such windows in the past. However, delaying beyond July 31 could have potentially reduced the Orbiter's life around the Moon.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission integrates an Orbiter, a Lander called Vikram and a Rover called Pragyan. If Vikram succeeds in soft-landing on the lunar South Pole, India would emerge as the fourth nation to do so after the United States, Russia and China. Israel had tried too, but crash-landed its Mission.

Isro had exercised 'abundant caution' in calling off the Monday morning launch. Although the glitch eventually turned out to be manageable, the space agency did not want to take any chances as the stakes involved were too high. The total mission cost is about Rs 1,000 crore.

Chandrayaan-2 mission comes over a decade after Chandrayaan-1 launched in 2008. That mission had drawn worldwide attention for indicating the presence of water on the lunar surface. Version 2 will now attempt to dig deeper to reconfirm water and map the surface in detail.

Registrations

Registrations to view the launch from the viewer's gallery at SDSC will begin on July 19, 6 pm onwards, Isro said in another tweet. The registration link is (https://www.shar.gov.in/VSCREGISTRATION/index.jsp). For further queries, Phone Number: 73827 68500 could be contacted.