The Chandrayaan- 2 was mission was originally slated for launch in 2012 but was delayed due to policy difference under UPA 2 government, former ISRO(Indian Space Research Organisation) chairman G Madhavan Nair said.
“Though the delay is not a serious issue. The Chandrayaan-2 was originally planned to be launched in 2012. But due to policy differences with under the UPA government, it was delayed” he said on Friday.
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“But under the NDA government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given maximum thrust to such projects like space mission under the leadership of Dr Sivan, the current Chairperson of ISRO. Several designs have been made in the past few months. I would like to congratulate ISRO for getting ready such a complicated satellite,” he added.
Nair led the Chandrayaan-1 orbiter mission in 2008. He was the Chairman of ISRO then and the secretary in the Department of Space from 2003 to 2009. In October 2018, he joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 is scheduled for liftoff at 0251 hours on 15 July from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. It is expected to take a total of 58 days post launch in various stages of orbit for the modules to reach the moon and an additional four days to land near the south polar region.
Chandrayaan-2 consists of an Orbiter, Lander and Rover, all equipped with scientific instruments to study the moon. The Orbiter will once again orbit from 100 km away, while the Lander and Rover modules will separate and make a soft-landing on the surface.
ISRO has named the Lander module Vikram, after Vikram Sarabhai, and the Rover module Pragyaan, meaning wisdom.
ISRO will use the same strategy as Chandrayaan-1 for this mission but the soft landing will be a new attempt. “It will take 15 minutes to land and is going to be the most terrifying moment because this is a flight I has never undertaken,” Sivan said.
The lunar landing is expected to take place on 6 or 7 September on the unexplored south polar region of the moon—a first for any country—which has the possibility of the presence of water in permanently shadowed areas as well as craters that are cold traps that contain the fossil record of the early solar system.
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