Chandrayaan-2 mission

Why is it in news?
  • Chandrayaan-2, the country’s first moon lander and rover mission, is a month away from launch as ISRO marked mid-July for the take-off and kept the launch window open from July 9 to 16.
More in news
  • Soft-landing on South Pole:
    (1) ISRO has set September 6 as the date to soft-land its landing craft at the lunar South Pole - a region where no agency has got to so far.
    (2) ISRO recently listed at least six complexities of soft landing a mission on the Moon – something that pioneers Russia and the U.S. could not achieve easily back in the mid-1960s.
  • Lander-Vikram:
    (1) The lander is named Vikram (meaning valour, after the father of the Indian space programme, Vikram Sarabhai).
    (2) It will release a small robotic rover, named Pragyan (wisdom), to move around, feel and understand the lunar surface.
    (3) Vikram must gently descend on a harsh rugged lunar surface, without getting damaged.
    (4) It must also avoid landing in a shadowy patch. It needs sunlight for generating its power.
    (5) The moon’s constantly sunny side gets light for 14 Earth days or one lunar day.
    (6) The lander and the rover are expected to work for just that duration.
  • Orbiter: The mother ship or the orbiter that carries Vikram and Pragyan will go around the moon at a distance of about 100 km, taking pictures and gathering surface information and sending them back to earth.
  • Payloads or instruments:
    (1) The mission carries 14 payloads or instruments to observe and gauge the lunar scene – both from a distance and on its surface.
    (2) One of them is a tiny NASA reflectometer to mark the spot for future missions and assess the distance from the earth.
  • Heavyweight launch: Weighing about 3,500 kg, Chandrayaan-2 will be launched on the heavy-lift GSLV-Mk III rocket.
Source
The Hindu




Posted by Jawwad Kazi on 10th Jun 2019
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