Countdown For Chandrayaan-2 Mission Launch Begins

NEW DELHI: The countdown for the Chandrayaan-2 mission launch began at 6:43 pm on Sunday. India’s second mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-2 mission, will be launched at 2:43 pm on Monday (July 22), a week after the launch was aborted due to a technical snag in its launch vehicle — GSLV-Mk-III rocket. ISRO later rectified the fault in its 44-metre Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-Mk III). Weighing about 640-tonne, the GSLV-Mk III rocket is nicknamed ‘Bahubali’ after the hero of a successful film of the same name. Just like the protagonist of the film lifted a heavy Lingam in one of its scenes, the rocket will carry the 3.8-tonne Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. About 16-minutes into its flight, the Rs 375-crore GSLV-Mk III rocket is expected to sling the Rs 603-crore Chandrayaan-2 into its 170x40400-km orbit. ISRO has sent up three GSLV-Mk III rockets so far. The first carried Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment in December 2014. The second and third GSLV-Mk III carried communication satellites GSAT-19 and GSAT-29 in February 2017 and November 2018 respectively. GSLV-Mk III will also be used for India’s manned space mission in 2022. (IANS)

Also Read: Chandrayaan-2 mission called off in the last minute: ISRO cites technical glitch