ZCZC
BFF-17
INDIA-SPACE-MOON
India counts down to new bid to launch Moon mission
SRIHARIKOTA, India, July 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Thousands gathered to
witness India’s second attempt to send a landmark spacecraft to the Moon on
Monday, a week after a fuel leak forced the launch to be postponed.
Indian scientists offered ritual prayers at temples near the base,
according to media reports, and said they were confident there would be no
repeat of the problem that led to countdown being halted 56 minutes before
last week’s launch.
The South Asian nation is bidding to become just the fourth nation —
after Russia, the United States and China — to land a spacecraft on the
Moon.
The fresh launch attempt for Chandrayaan-2 — Moon Chariot 2 — is
scheduled for 2:43 pm (0913 GMT).
With light rain falling on the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota,
an island off the coast of southern Andhra Pradesh state, President Ram Nath
Kovind joined 7,000 dignitaries and flag-waving school children waiting for
the launch.
The official countdown started late Sunday and the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) said the fuelling of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch
Vehicle (GSLV) MkIII, India’s most powerful rocket, was going according to
plan.
ISRO chief K. Sivan told The Hindu newspaper late Sunday that there was
“no chance for any technical fault to arise now”.
“When the technical fault happened, we stopped the countdown, identified
the issue, and rectified it.”
– Destination Moon –
The rocket will take up an orbiter, a lander and a rover, and has been
almost entirely designed and made in India.
The 2.4-tonne (5,300-pound) orbiter is expected to circle the Moon for
about one year, taking images of the surface, looking for signs of water, and
studying the atmosphere.
The lander — named after Vikram A. Sarabhai, the father of India’s space
programme — will carry the rover and be placed on the surface near the lunar
South Pole.
ISRO scientists will remotely control the rover named Pragyaan — “wisdom”
in Sanskrit — as it carries out experiments. It will work for one lunar day,
the equivalent of 14 Earth days, studying rocks and soil on the Moon’s
surface.
Experts said setbacks such as the halt to the first launch were to be
expected because of the complexity of the mission.
“In such an ambitious and prestigious mission like Chandrayaan, one cannot
take a chance even if a small flaw is detected,” Rajeswari Pillai
Rajagopalan, head of space policy at the New Delhi think tank the Observer
Research Foundation, told AFP.
Former NASA scientist Kumar Krishen said India’s space agency should be
praised for taking on ambitious projects like Chandrayaan-2.
“We should keep in mind that space exploration is risky as many systems
have failed in the past and many lives lost,” he told AFP.
Aside from propelling India into rarefied company among spacefaring
nations, Chandrayaan-2 also stands out because of its low cost.
About $140 million has been spent on preparations for the mission, a much
smaller price tag compared with similar missions by other countries.
The United States — which is marking the 50th anniversary of Neil
Armstrong becoming the first human on the Moon — spent the equivalent of
more than $100 billion on its Apollo missions.
Chandrayaan-2, and India’s space programme as a whole, are a source of
national pride.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to send a manned mission into orbit
by 2022, and India hopes to seek out commercial satellite and orbiting deals.
The new mission comes almost 11 years after the launch of India’s first
lunar mission — Chandrayaan-1 — which orbited the Moon and searched for
water.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1233 hrs