Approved by Manmohan Singh in 2008, the Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22. Here's a timeline of India's second moon mission
The much-talked-about India’s second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 is on its way to Moon. The towering geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle, in its first operational flight, had lifted off on July 22 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota into cloudy skies at 2.43 pm and successfully placed the spacecraft into the earth orbit 16 minutes and 14 seconds later. The rover's soft landing is planned for September 7, 48 days after the launch.
The 3,850-kg Chandrayaan-2, a three-module spacecraft comprising orbiter, lander and rover, has been injected into the earth's orbit. It will be subjected to a series of orbit manoeuvres in the coming weeks to take it to the vicinity of the moon, with the rover soft landing planned on September 7.#ISRO
Here's a view of the majestic lift-off of #GSLVMkIII-M1 carrying #Chandrayaan2 pic.twitter.com/z1ZTrSnAfH
— ISRO (@isro) July 22, 2019
A timeline of Chandrayaan-2
> The lunar mission was approved on September 18, 2008 by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
> After over a decade of mission planning and implementation, the assembly of batteries for all stages of launch vehicle was completed on June 18, 2019.
> On June 29, the rover integrated with lander Vikram after completion of all tests.
> On July 1, Chandrayaan-2 was getting ready for integration with GSLV launcher and three days later, on July 4, the online registration process for witnessing the mission commenced.
> On July 9, routing and termination of pyros, pressure sensors, Umbilical Connection Unit (UCU) separation connector cables end to end checks completed. The launch was scheduled at 2.51 am on July 15.
> On July 14, the launch countdown of GSLV MkIII-M1/Chandrayaan-2 commenced at 06.51 am.
> An hour before the launch, a technical snag was observed. As a measure of abundant precaution, the launch was called off. The revised launch date was announced at 2.43 pm on July 22.
Earth bound maneuvers for #Chandrayaan2 spacecraft are planned to be executed from today onwards.For details please check our website https://t.co/s8tr0VQHi0#ISRO
— ISRO (@isro) July 24, 2019
> The spacecraft launched successfully as per the revised schedule. Two days after the launch, the first earth-bound orbit-raising manoeuvre for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was performed successfully on July 24. The manoeuvre was carried out at 2.52 pm using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of 57 seconds.
> The second orbit raising manoeuvre is scheduled in the early hours of July 26 at about 1 am.
> The spacecraft is scheduled to soft land on the lunar surface on September 7. A live show from ISRO has been planned on the D-Day by the National Geographic, said the network.
(With inputs from PTI)
