Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced today on Thursday that India’s Rs. 1,000-crore Chandrayaan 2 moon mission which is India’s second mission to the moon will be launched on next Monday at 2:43 pm from Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota, days after the first launch attempt was called off.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The launch is scheduled at 2.43pm on Monday from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota
- Isro chairman K Sivan, who was on his way to Sriharkota on Sunday morning, told reporters at Chennai airport that corrective measures had been taken and that the mission would be a success
ISRO tweeted, “Chandrayaan-2 launch, which was called off due to a technical snag on July 15, 2019, is now rescheduled at 2:43 pm IST on Monday, July 22, 2019.”
The mission, Chandrayaan-2, which can make India the fourth country after the US, Russia, and China to successfully pull off a soft-landing on the moon, was stopped 56 minutes and 24 seconds before its launch this Monday after a technical snag was discovered in the unmanned launch vehicle system.
In its announcement of the mission being aborted, the space agency said that the step to delay the launch was taken “as a measure of abundant precaution”.
According to a senior Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official, if the problem would not have been rectified earlier, Chandrayaan 2 would have been a “total failure”. He further added, “The problem was serious, but simple to resolve. Luckily, we caught the problem. Alertness, prayers and the good wishes of one billion Indians helped avert the mission’s total failure.”
The officials also told that the technical issue was with the critical cryogenic stage, the last such stage space vehicles enter just before they are about to launch.
Highly flammable liquid hydrogen and oxygen used in the cryogenic stage were removed from the rocket and the problem was then addressed with the “tightening” of an errant component.
However, ISRO said after the snag was detected, “an expert committee was constituted to analyze the issue and suggest remedial action. The committee identified the cause of the problem and all corrective actions are implemented. Thereafter, the system performance is normal.”
