chandrayaan 2

India's Chandrayaan-2 has detected strong evidence of ice buried deep within permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's south pole. This groundbreaking discovery, made using radar data, could be crucial for future human missions, offering a vital local resource for drinking water and rocket fuel. The findings highlight the south pole's significance in the ongoing space race.

A new international study reveals lunar water ice deposits in permanently shadowed regions are more stable than previously thought, with 74% of these areas unaffected by impacts. This finding is crucial for future manned lunar missions aiming to establish bases, as these regions offer promising targets for water ice exploration and utilization.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday morning returned to the Isro control room to boost the morale of space scientists, after the Chandrayaan-2 lander Vikram lost communication during landing, just 2.1 km from the lunar surface. The PM told Isro scientists that "there are new frontiers to discover and new places to go". "We will rise to the occasion. I want to say, India is with you."

Isro is looking to carry out the separation of Chandrayaan-2 module (lander Vikram and rover Pragyan) from the orbiter between 12.45pm and 1.45pm on Monday. Isro will load the sequence of commands for Vikram’s separation, which will then be autonomously executed by the onboard systems. The separation will make Vikram independent for the first time since the July 22 launch.

The launch of Chandrayaan-2 on Monday not only was widely covered by the national media but the news of India's Moon mission dominated global media too.

India will mark history on Saturday with its second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2. Once 'Vikram' module of chandrayaan 2 makes a soft landing on the moon on early Saturday, India will become the fourth country after the US, Russia, and China to achieve the feat.

A 20-hour countdown for the launch of India’s second Moon mission- Chandrayaan-2- onboard GSLV Mk-III, country's most powerful rocket to date, began at 6.51am on Sunday. The launch is scheduled at 2.51am on Monday from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. With Chandrayaan-2, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) aims at landing on the Moon for the first time.

Chandrayaan-2 will not only attempt to take India to the elite space club of three countries that had soft-landed on Moon, but will also try to find possibilities of sustaining human life on Earth’s natural satellite with an aim to colonising it. Chandrayaan-2 is likely to look for a large cave that could serve as a base for future manned missions.

When a technical snag tripped the lift-off of GSLV Mk III carrying Chandrayaan-2 on July 15, there were murmurs within the scientific community whether the launch will take place this year.

Late on Saturday, Isro said that the performance of Chandrayaan-2 was normal after rehearsals for the launch due at 2.43pm on Monday. The 20-hour countdown for the launch started at 6.43pm on Sunday. Filling of propellants will start late on Sunday night and continue on Monday. For all the GSLV-MkIII launches, Isro first fills the solid propellants in the rocket boosters after countdown begins.

Forty-seven days after it left Earth, Chandrayaan-2 lander Vikram will decide on the exact landing spot on Moon when it would be 100m above the lunar surface between 1.30am and 2.30am on Saturday. If all goes well, it'll touch down 78 seconds later. Chandrayaan-2's preferred landing site is between two craters, Manzinus and Simpelius, about 350km north of Moon's south pole.

Written Off As Dry & Dead After Apollo, Moon Regained Scientific & Strategic Relevance After Isro’s 2008 Mission Detected Water Molecules, Reshaping Global Space Policy, Allowing For Artemis

Once Isro successfully completes the lunar orbit insertion scheduled for Tuesday, the space agency will perform four more manoeuvres on August 21, 28, 30 and September 1, to take the spacecraft to lower orbits and eventually make it settle in an 100kmX100km orbit.

The US space community believes the landmark mission would help enrich their understanding of the moon's geology. Chandrayaan-2 carries 13 instruments from India and one from NASA. Brett Denevi, planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University said, she was most excited about the orbiter's imaging infrared spectrometer, which will map light reflected off the lunar surface over a wide range of wavelengths.

ISRO is all set for the Chandrayaan-2 launch from Sriharikota at 2.43PM today. The launch will be live streamed on DD National’s YouTube channel. Watch the Chandrayaan-2 launch here.

Isro on Friday completed another flawless manoeuvre around Earth by raising the orbit of Chandrayaan-2 yet again. Isro said that fourth earthbound orbit-raising manoeuvre was performed successfully using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of 646 seconds. The orbit achieved is 277 x 89,472 km. The next orbit-raising manoeuvre is scheduled on Aug 6.

Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru is organizing several programmes on account of "Chandrayana-2" launch scheduled by Indian Space Research Organisation on July 15, 2019.

The excitement over Chandrayan-2’s landing in the early hours of Saturday has reached feverish pitch, comparable to the buzz before a cricket world cup with India among the finalist teams. Airports across India will be live telecasting the historic landing of Chandrayaan-2.

The landing module, comprising lander Vikram and rover Pragyan, will separate from the orbiter on Monday (September 2) or early Tuesday. On Monday, after the integrated spacecraft is stabilised in an orbit ideal for separation— which is estimated to be 121km X 125km— Isro will load the sequence of commands for the separation, which will then be autonomously executed by the onboard systems.

India's second mission to Moon, Chandrayaan-2 onboard GSLVMkIII-M1 was called off due to a technical snag, the Indian Space Research Organisation said. "A technical snag was observed in launch vehicle system at T-56 minute. Chandrayaan2 launch has been called off for today. Revised launch date will be announced later," Isro tweeted.

Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lander hard-landed as reduction in velocity during its descent was more than the designed parameters, Jitendra Singh, minister of state in PMO said. "The first phase of descent was performed normally from an altitude of 30 kms to 7.4 kms above moon's surface & velocity was reduced from 1,683 metres per second to 146 metres per second," he added.

Chandrayaan-2, riding on its predecessor’s discovery of water molecules, is a mission the world will sit up and watch. Its actual achievements will come 52 days later, when it lands (Vikram) on the lunar surface. Unlike Chandrayaan-1, this Rs 978-crore mission involves landing Vikram and unloading a Rover (Pragyan), while the Orbiter will go around the Earth’s satellite.

A spectroscopic instrument on board Chandrayaan-2's orbiter has taken the first illuminated image of the lunar surface with an objective to map the mineral and lunar composition. The data will help in understanding Moon's evolution. Also, Nasa's orbiter, present in the lunar orbit, has sent pictures of the south pole region where Isro's Vikram lander had crashlanded.