ISRO Chandrayaan 2: Latest Updates and Everything You Need to Know

ISRO Chandrayaan 2, a mission that every Indian takes pride in is stated to take place in between 9 and 16 July 2019. The mission will be launched on the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III), and the moon landing is expected on 6 September 2019. As the mission date approaches, ISRO is sharing intricate details of the Chandrayaan 2 on its social media handles.

In a fresh update today, ISRO has tweeted a picture providing a comparison on the Chandrayaan 1 and Chandrayaan 2. The picture states that unlike Chandrayaan 1, all the fourteen payloads onboard the Chandrayaan 2 will be Made in India.

Everything You Need to Know about the ISRO Chandrayaan 2 Lunar Mission

For those unaware about the technology behind ISRO Chandrayaan 2, the mission will is India’s second lunar exploration after Chandrayaan 1 and has three modules namely the Orbiter, Vikram (Named after Vikram Sarabhai) which is the lander and Pragyan, which is the rover that will be housed inside the lander.

The Orbiter and Lander modules will be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an integrated module and accommodated inside the GSLV MK-III launch vehicle, according to an ISRO press release. The integrated module, which consists of the orbiter and lander, will reach the Moon orbit using Orbiter propulsion module, after being launched into the earth bound orbit by GSLV MK III.

The rover Pragyan will then roll out for carrying out scientific experiments on the lunar surface. If successful, ISRO Chandrayaan 2 will be the first mission to land a rover near the lunar south pole. India will become only the fourth country to achieve this feat after US, USSR and China.

The rover Pragyan has three subsystems developed by IIT Kanpur to provide it mobility namely: Kinematic traction control to help the rover navigate through rough lunar terrain, control and motor dynamics, and stereoscopic camera-based 3D vision to provide the rovers a 3D view of the surrounding terrain with the aid of two NAVCAMs in front of the rover.

A total of 14 payloads will be carried onboard the ISRO Chandrayaan 2 lunar mission and all fourteen of them will be supplied by Indian Institutes such as: Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (LASS) from ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) and Solar X-ray monitor (XSM) from Physical Research Laboratory (PRL). Various other ISRO centres such as Space Application Centre (SAC), IIRS, SPL, and LEOS are all contributing towards the mission.

(Source: Wikipedia)