By Aminul Islam Mirja
NEW DELHI, Sept 6, 2019 (BSS) – Chandrayaan 2, the India’s second lunar
mission, is set to touch down at the surface of the Moon after midnight today
creating history by becoming India a fourth country to land on the Moon, and
the first nation to reach closest to the Moon’s south pole.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will witness the historic landing live from
the space agency’s control room at the ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru with
over 60 high school students across the country who cleared an online space
quiz event last month, officials said.
The moon lander Vikram that separated from its orbiting mothership has
already performed two manoeuvres to lower its altitude for a perfect
touchdown between 1:30 am and 2:30 am on Saturday, the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) said.
“Chandrayaan-2 would attempt to soft land the lander “Vikram” and rover
“Pragyan” in a high plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N.
While, the “Pragyan” will carry out experiments on the lunar surface for a
period of one lunar day, which is equal to 14 earth days, the main orbiter
would continue its mission for a year,” the ISRO said.
“We have the same wishes for Vikram, Orbiter. Want to stay in touch with
Vikram and Pragyan as they make their way to the untouched lunar South Pole
and uncover its many mysteries,” ISRO tweeted.
The powered descent, which India will attempt for the first time, was
described as “fifteen minutes of terror” by the ISRO chairperson K Sivan.
“It will be a terrifying moment for us. Everybody’s eyes would be glued to
their consoles. The telemetry parameters will keep telling us that we are
going in the right direction, but at the same time, there will be a lot of
anxiety about what will happen in the next moment,” he said.
Nearly 1,000 crore Chandrayaan 2 mission was launched on July 22 from
Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has rescheduled the launching
time as the mission was aborted just before lift-off a week before due to
technical glitches.