India’s second moon mission Chandrayaan-2 lifts off

By Ahmad Adil

CHANDIGARH, India (AA) - India’s second lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, lifted off on Monday morning from Sriharikota in Indian’s southwestern state of Andhra Pradesh.

“KUDOS to the brilliant team at #ISRO [Indian Space Research Organization] GSLVMkIII-M1 successfully injects #Chandrayaan2 spacecraft into Earth Orbit,” Press Information Bureau (PIB), the India government's main agency for dissemination of information wrote in a Twitter message.

Officials said that landing of the spacecraft is expected in first week of September.

On July 15, the launch of India's second mission to the moon was called off due to a “technical snag”. The agency then announced July 22 as the new date of the launch.

According to ISRO, Chandrayaan-2 has three modules: the Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and the Rover (Pragyan). The Rover is housed inside the Lander. Chandrayaan-2, weighing 3.8 tons, carries 13 scientific satellites that will explore the southern part of the moon.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also hailed the launch of the spacecraft.

“Indian at heart, Indian in spirit! What would make every Indian overjoyed is the fact that #Chandrayaan2 is a fully indigenous mission. It will have an Orbiter for remote sensing the Moon and also a Lander-Rover module for analysis of lunar surface,” Modi said on Twitter.

“#Chandrayaan2 is unique because it will explore and perform studies on the south pole region of lunar terrain which is not explored and sampled by any past mission. This mission will offer new knowledge about the Moon,” the prime minister said.

The mission would make India the fourth country to carry out a soft landing on the moon.