{"id":13097,"date":"2019-07-10T00:10:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T16:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/indias-first-moon-lander-stacked-for-launch\/"},"modified":"2019-07-10T00:10:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T16:10:09","slug":"indias-first-moon-lander-stacked-for-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/indias-first-moon-lander-stacked-for-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s first moon lander stacked for launch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Chandrayaan 2 mission\u2019s Vikram landing craft and Pragyan rover undergo preparations for launch at the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India\u2019s east coast. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

India\u2019s first lunar lander has been hoisted on top of its GSLV Mk.3 rocket ahead of a liftoff scheduled for Sunday.<\/p>\n

The launch aboard India\u2019s most powerful rocket \u2014 the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk.3 \u2014 will begin a nearly two-month cruise through ever-higher orbits around Earth, and ultimately into lunar orbit before commencing a powered descent to the moon\u2019s surface Sept. 6.<\/p>\n

The Chandrayaan 2 mission consists of three components \u2014 an orbiter module, landing craft and mobile rover \u2014 launching together on the GSLV Mk.3 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India\u2019s southeast coast, the country\u2019s sole spaceport on Sriharikota Island around 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Chennai.<\/p>\n

Liftoff is set for 2121 GMT (5:21 p.m. EDT) Sunday, and the GSLV Mk.3 will place the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft into an elliptical transfer orbit stretching some 25,100 miles (40,400 kilometers) above Earth.<\/p>\n

The launch is scheduled for 2:51 a.m. Monday local time in India.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chandrayaan 2 mission contains three components, that is the rover, which is only 27 kilograms (59 pounds), and we have a lander that\u2019s 1.4 tonnes (3,100 pounds),\u201d said K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. \u201cThis rover is kept inside the lander, and the lander is kept on an orbiter. The orbiter is 2.4 tonnes (5,300 pounds).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe total composite module has a mass of about 3.8 tonnes (8,400 pounds),\u201d Sivan said.<\/p>\n

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The Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft is fully stacked before encapsulation inside the GSLV Mk.3\u2019s payload fairing. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chandrayaan 2 is India\u2019s first lunar landing mission, and the country\u2019s second robotic mission to the moon following the launch of the Chandrayaan 1 orbiter in October 2008.<\/p>\n

The launch Sunday will come two days before the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11.<\/p>\n

If the landing is successful, India will become the fourth nation to accomplish a controlled soft landing on the moon, after the former Soviet Union, the United States and China. The Israeli non-profit SpaceIL attempted a landing on the moon in April with the Beresheet mission, but the privately-funded probe crashed on final descent.<\/p>\n

Located at approximately 71 degrees south latitude, Chandrayaan 2\u2019s target landing site is closer to the moon\u2019s south pole than any previous mission, roughly 220 miles (350 kilometers) from the rim of the South Pole-Aitken basin.<\/p>\n

Scientists believe he sprawling basin region is one of the most ancient impact sites in the solar system, created when a large asteroid or comet struck the moon billions of years ago.<\/p>\n

For the first time, Chandrayaan 2\u2019s rover could examine ancient material in the lunar crust ejected during the colossal collision that created the South Pole-Aitken basin, providing data that could yield clues about the solar system\u2019s chaotic early history. The rover, named Pragyan, carries an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to measure the elemental composition of the rocks at the Chandrayaan 2 landing site, along with a laser-induced breakdown spectroscope.<\/p>\n

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Ground crews raise the Chandrayaan 2 mission\u2019s lunar lander (left) on top of the orbiter segment (right) during launch preparations last month. One half of the GSLV Mk.3\u2019s payload fairing is seen in the background. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

China accomplished the first soft landing on the far side of the moon in January in the mid-latitudes of the southern hemisphere, within the South Pole-Aitken basin. The Chang\u2019e 4 mission\u2019s stationary lander and rover are still operational.<\/p>\n

But Chang\u2019e 4 did not carry an X-ray spectrometer to obtain elemental measurements of the lunar crust. The presence of such an instrument on-board Chandrayaan 2 could be boon for lunar geologists.<\/p>\n

Five science payloads will each operate on the Chandrayaan 2 lander, dubbed Vikram, and the mission\u2019s orbiter component. The instruments include spectrometers, radars, plasma sensors and cameras.<\/p>\n

The Chandrayaan 2 landing craft also carries a passive laser retro-reflector provided by NASA to allow precise measurements between the Earth and the moon, and potentially become a node in a lunar navigation network to help guide future missions.<\/p>\n

Chandrayaan 2\u2019s orbiter and lander segments arrived at the launch base in mid-June from the U.R. Rao Satellite Center in Bengaluru. On June 29, ground crews at the launch site integrated the rover with the landing craft, then stacked the lander on top of the orbiter module.<\/p>\n

Technicians conducted radio frequency checks with the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft July 2, and encapsulated the probe inside the GSLV Mk.3\u2019s payload fairing, the rocket\u2019s nose cone.<\/p>\n

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Chandrayaan 2\u2019s orbiter module. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ISRO teams hoisted the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft atop the GSLV Mk.3 rocket July 4, and the fully-assembled vehicle rolled out to the Second Launch Pad at Sriharikota on Sunday. The launch team held a mission dress rehearsal Monday, and technicians on Tuesday worked on the launcher\u2019s pyrotechnic devices used for major launch and in-flight separation events.<\/p>\n

The launch will mark the third orbital flight of India\u2019s GSLV Mk.3, and the rocket\u2019s first operational mission after two full-up test flights in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n

Indian officials originally assigned the Chandrayaan 2 mission to fly on the smaller GSLV Mk.2 rocket, but the spacecraft\u2019s weight grew during development, prompting managers last year to switch to the bigger launcher.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chandrayaan 2 mission\u2019s Vikram landing craft and Pragyan rover undergo preparations for launch at the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India\u2019s east coast. Credit: ISRO India\u2019s first lunar lander has been hoisted on top of its GSLV Mk.3 rocket ahead of a liftoff scheduled for Sunday. The launch aboard India\u2019s most powerful rocket \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2442,1259,1680,2587,301,525,25,625],"class_list":["post-13097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-chandrayaan-2","tag-gslv","tag-gslv-mk-3","tag-gslv-mk-3-m1","tag-india","tag-isro","tag-launch","tag-moon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}