On 22nd July 2019 at 14:43 IST, Chandrayaan II made a successful lift off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Nellore (Tamil Nadu, India). The space craft carrying a lunar orbiter, lander and rover was originally scheduled to lift off on 15th July 2019 at 14:51 IST. However, due to technical issues spotted with less than an hour to take off, the launch was called off. The main objective stated by ISRO for this mission is to discovery lunar water.
What is Chandrayaan II?
Chandrayaan II is the successor of Chandrayaan I by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). Chandrayaan I was launched in October 2008 for mapping the chemical characteristics and topography of the lunar surface. The orbiter stopped sending signal in August 2009 due to technical issues. Soon after, ISRO declared the mission to be over.
Chandrayaan II was originally planned to be made through a joint venture between ISRO and Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency). The agreement was signed by the two agencies on 12th November 2007. ISRO was incharge of executing the orbiter and rover, while Roscosmos was responsible for the lander. This mission got extended from a launch in 2013, as anticipated, to 2016, due to failure of Roscosmos in delivering the lander. However, later Russia withdrew from the project as Fobos-Grunt mission to Mars failed. The same technology was being used in other space missions as well.
In 2015, India decided to build Chandrayaan II on its own. The mission was set to motion with launching date expected to be in March 2018. But the launch was further rescheduled to April, then October. In June 2018, the launch was further pushed to first quarter of 2019 after the Comprehensive Fourth Technical Review Meeting. During a test carried out in February 2019, the lander’s leg sustained some minor damages.
Later, on 15th July 2019, the preparations for launch was almost initiated but was aborted due to technical glitch.
Design of Chandrayaan II:
The launcher, GSLV Mk III (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III), carries three components, namely, the orbiter, Vikram lander and Pragyan rover.
The Orbiter-
The orbiter lift off weight is approximately 2379 kg. It will orbit the moon at an altitude of 100 km. The high resolution camera on the orbiter will capture images of the lunar surface before detaching from the lander and rover. It is carrying eight devices most of which are made by ISRO or Indian subsidiaries. The orbiter is expected to last 1 year on the lunar orbit.
Vikram Lander-
The lander is named after Vikram Sarabhai, who is considered as the father of Indian space program. The estimated lift off weight of the lander is 1471 Kg. The lander is expected to detach from the orbiter using its 800 N liquid main engines. Initially, the lander had four main liquid engines. However, another engine was mounted centrally in order to remove the lunar dust draft during landing. The lander will be conducting various scientific research on the lunar surface for 14 days after achieving a soft landing and deploying the rover.
Pragyan Rover-
The solar-run rover is named as Pragyan which means ‘wisdom’ in Sanskrit. It weighs around 27 Kg. The rover has six wheels and will commute at 1 cm per second on the surface. During its navigation on the surface, it will carry out chemical analysis, the data of which will be received by the Earth station through the lander.
The stereoscopic 3D camera will provide 3D imaging of the surface which will enable the ground control team to navigate the rover. The rover is expected to accomplish its mission within 14 earth days, which equals to 1 lunar day as it is not equipped with the infrastructure to withstand the cold lunar night.
Objective of Chandrayaan II:
The main objective of this space mission is to understand and study the lunar topography and exosphere. To find the chemical composition of the lunar soil and discover water bodies/content, which is better known as Lunar water. While the orbiter will also help sketch a 3D map of the moon’s surface.
Chandrayaan II Leading Scientists:
Muthaya Vanitha (Project Director)
Chandrakanta Kumar (Deputy Project Director)
Ritu Karidhal (Mission Director)
Nandini Harinath (Deputy Operations Director)
Anuradha T K (Programme Director at ISRO)
Project Cost of Chandrayaan II:
The total allocated cost of the Chandrayaan II project is Rs.978 crore and the bifurcation is as follows
GSVL Mk II = Rs. 375 crore
Space Equipment = Rs. 603 crore
There is also a lot of buzz going on around how this space programme by ISRO costed less than certain Hollywood movies such as Avengers: End Game and Dark Phoenix among others.
Chandrayaan will orbit the Earth till it attains enough thrust to set course for the moon. The expected date of landing is 07th September 2019 between two craters (Manzinus C and Simpelius N). India will become the fourth country on successful landing preceded by Russia, US and China. The morals are high of all Indians on this grand feat of by ISRO as fingers are crossed for a soft and successful landing of Chandrayaan II on the moon.
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