Chandrayaan-2: India's second mission to moon to be launched by ISRO in 2018; know all about it

Chandrayaan-2, India's second space mission to moon is set to launch in 2018, said Dr. Jitendra Singh Union Minister of State (IC) for Atomic Energy and Space announced on Monday.

All you need to know about India' s second mission to Moon

Chandryaan-2 is an advanced version of the previous Chandryaan-1 mission. It consists of an Orbiter, Lander, and Rover configuration.

It is planned to be launched as a composite stack into the Earth Parking Orbit (EPO) of 170 X 18,500 km by GSLV-Mk II. The Orbiter carries the combined stack up to moon till the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI). 

The combined stack will then be inserted into a lunar orbit of 100 km x 100 km. The Lander is separated from the Orbiter in this orbit.

The Orbiter with scientific payloads will orbit around the moon.

The Lander will land on the Moon at a specified site and deploy the Rover. 

The scientific payloads onboard the Orbiter, Lander, and Rover are expected to perform mineralogical and elemental studies of the lunar surface.

During 2010, it was agreed that Russian Space Agency ROSCOSMOS would be responsible for Lunar Lander and ISRO will be responsible for Orbiter and Rover as well as Launch by GSLV.

Due to a change in the programmatic alignment of this mission, it was decided that the Chandrayaan-2 will be completely an India mission and the Lunar Lander development would be done by ISRO.

India’s first mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1, was launched successfully on 22 October 2008 from Sriharikota Andhra Pradesh. The satellite made more than 3400 orbits around the moon and was concluded on 29 August 2009 when Chandrayaan-1 lost communication with Earth. 

(With Inputs from ISRO)

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