{"id":12965,"date":"2019-09-05T17:34:22","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T09:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/indian-moon-lander-ready-for-final-descent\/"},"modified":"2019-09-05T17:34:22","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T09:34:22","slug":"indian-moon-lander-ready-for-final-descent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/indian-moon-lander-ready-for-final-descent\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian moon lander ready for final descent"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Artist\u2019s concept of the Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lander. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Vikram lander, part of India\u2019s Chandrayaan 2 mission launched in July, will attempt to land near the lunar south pole Friday and deploy a rover to conduct the first on-the-ground scientific surveys away from the moon\u2019s equatorial regions.<\/p>\n

The robotic spacecraft is set for touchdown on the moon at around 2023 GMT (4:23 p.m. EDT) Friday between two craters \u2014 Manzinus C and Simpelius N \u2014 at 70.9 degrees south latitude, closer to the moon\u2019s south pole than any previous mission.<\/p>\n

Less than half of the attempts to land on the moon since the dawn of the Space Age have been successful, and the Chandrayaan 2 mission will be India\u2019s first try.<\/p>\n

But K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, said he is confident Chandrayaan 2 will safely land.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne good thing is we are learning from their failures,\u201d he said in a press conference Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the confidence in this landing mission,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cWe are confident because we have enough testing, enough simulations. All the subsystem- and system-level, sensor-level, thruster-level, all the simulations here are done. We are confident that anything humanly possible, we did.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s a new mission,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a terrifiying moment for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chandrayaan 2 is India\u2019s second mission to the moon, but it marks the country\u2019s first attempt to land on another planetary body. The mission is a follow-up to India\u2019s Chandrayaan 1 orbiter, which was the first spacecraft to detect evidence of ice hidden in permanently-shadowed craters at the lunar poles.<\/p>\n

The Chandrayaan 2 mission launched July 22 from a spaceport on India\u2019s southeastern coast, and it arrived in orbit around the moon Aug. 20. The Chandrayaan 2 mission\u2019s orbiter module, which will image and study the moon from an altitude of around 62 miles (100 kilometers), separated from the mission\u2019s Vikram lander Monday at 0745 GMT (3:45 a.m. EDT).<\/p>\n

\"\"
The terrain mapping camera on India\u2019s Chandrayaan 2 orbiter captured this view of the moon Aug. 23, a few days after arriving in lunar orbit. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis proof of capability, the Chandrayaan 2 mission with the lander and the rover, is very ambitious,\u201d said Clive Neal, a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame, in an interview with Spaceflight Now.<\/p>\n

And Chandrayaan 2\u2019s $136 million cost is a fraction of the development budget for NASA\u2019s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which cost more than $500 million to build and launch in 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got a nice landing site picked out,\u201d Neal said. \u201cIt looks pretty benign in terms of small craters and boulders. This would be a pathfinder for future landings in more challenging environments, and because it\u2019s a new place (to explore) on the moon, there will be good science that comes out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

India seeks to become the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the moon, following the former Soviet Union, the United States and China.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is very exciting, and I wish them well,\u201d Neal said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got a wealth of experiments that they\u2019re carrying on the orbiter, the lander and the rover. It\u2019s going to tell us some interesting things about the lunar surface at a location we haven\u2019t been to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since separating from the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter, the Vikram lander has fired its rocket thrusters to maneuver into a lower orbit that ranges between 21 miles (35 kilometers) and 62 miles (101 kilometers) above the moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

The maneuvers set up Vikram to begin its final 15-minute powered descent to the lunar surface at approximately 2008 GMT (4:08 p.m. EDT) Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that time onward, the entire thing will be decided by the Chandrayaan 2 lander only,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cWhen the lander is coming down, it will take images of the place, and it will compare with the image of what we stored on-board. It will find a flat surface, it will re-target, it will hover for some time, and it will decide where to land, and it will land. It will land autonomously in an intelligent way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Named for Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India\u2019s space program, the lander measures about 8.3 feet (2.5 meters) tall and 6.6 feet (2 meters) wide.<\/p>\n