India's lunar mission takes off for Moon’s unexplored South Pole
The launch, telecast live on state broadcasterDoordarshan and streamed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) onits website and on social media, was greeted with loud cheers from thescientists as the indigenous Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark IIIlifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota (in southern India) at2.43pm local time (9.13 am GMT).
«#GSLVMkIII-M1 lifts-off from Sriharikota carrying#Chandrayaan2,« the space agency tweeted, adding that it would continue toprovide updates regarding its progress.
ISRO chief K. Sivan in his address in the control roomafter the launch said «today is a historical day for space and science andtechnology in India».
»It is the beginning of a historical journey ofIndia towards the Moon and land in a place near South Pole and carry outscientific experiments,« he said.
Minutes later, Sivan announced that the vehicle had»successfully injected Chandrayaan-2 into Earth orbit before it lands«at a place near (the) south pole to carry out scientificexperiments».
The launch was initially scheduled to be held on July15. However, a technical problem in the launch vehicle caused it to be calledoff with barely an hour before the takeoff.
Chandrayaan-2 aims to send a rover to the Moon, landand deploy it at the uncharted lunar South Pole - a giant leap with arelatively low-cost budget in the South Asian country's ambitious spaceprogram.
The mission includes a lunar orbiter and lander, alongwith the rover. The lander carries a camera, a seismometer and a thermalinstrument.
The lander, named Vikram, is expected to land on Sep7, or «on the 48th day of the mission, which begins today», ISRO tweeted.
The Chandrayaan-2 mission includes collecting samplesfrom the surface of the Earth satellite, determining its mineral compositionand searching for water there.
The rover is designed to explore the lunar surface forabout 14 days, traversing a distance of some 500 meters, although the probewill remain in lunar orbit for over a year.
If the mission ultimately comes off and is successful,India will join an elite club of nations - including the United States, Russiaand China – which have landed a rover on the Moon's surface.
India's first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, wasconducted in 2008 and a follow-up mission was initially expected to be launchedsoon after that but has taken more than 10 years to come - almost - tofruition.
In 2013-14, India did put a satellite into orbitaround Mars, the country's first interplanetary mission.
ISRO had a budget of some $1.32 billion in 2017-18compared to NASA's $19.5 billion budget for 2019.
Despite its limited resources, ISRO has carved out aname for itself in the global space race with its Moon and Mars missions, aswell as its communication satellites and remote sensing technologies, spurringmany countries to choose the Indian space agency to launch their satellites.