'Chandrayaan-2 will soar, no repeat of glitch'

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Sivan on Sunday assured the nation that Chandrayaan-2, the country’s second unmanned space programme, will be successful on Monday as enough steps have been taken to correct the “technical error” that led to aborting the mission last week.

Sivan also expressed the hope that the moon mission would lead to several scientific findings as India will be the first country to land in the South Pole of the moon. The ISRO chief said the 20-hour countdown for the mission will begin at 6.43 pm on Sunday and Chandrayaan-II will blast off from the Sathish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, 100 km from here, at 2.43 pm on Monday afternoon.

“We have taken enough corrective measures. The technical glitch was discovered, and the mission was aborted last week. The tests to find out the error and make remedial measures continued for one-and-a-half days. I can assure that there will be no such technical failure this time. There is no chance for it,” Sivan told reporters at the Airport here.

He was proceeding to Sriharikota to be with the scientists for the much-expected launch on Monday. Chandrayaan-II was to be launched on July 15 at 2.51 am but was suspended 56 minutes due to a technical glitch.

Sivan said the second unmanned mission to the moon is being watched by scientists across the world since India would be the first country in the world to land near the South Pole of the moon. “Chandrayaan-I found that water molecules are present in the moon and we expect Chandrayaan-II also to discover several things in the moon. We hope that there will be lot many scientific findings this time,” Sivan said.

As a billion people wait with bated breath for the launch, the ISRO said the launch rehearsal of #GSLVMkIII-M1 / #Chandrayaan2 mission was completed with normal performance on Saturday night.

The mission is quite interesting since the lunar South Pole is kind of a treasure trove because a larger section of its surface stays in the shadow than the North Pole. “There is a possibility of the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it. In addition, the south polar region has craters that are cold traps, containing a fossilised record of the early Solar System,” the ISRO said.

Chandrayaan 2 will use the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to attempt a soft landing in a high plain between two craters — Manzinus C and Simpelius N — at a latitude of about 70° south, it said.