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India’s Chandrayaan-2 will enter Moon’s orbit on Tuesday, August 20 which is tomorrow. Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander is expected to land on the Moon’s surface on September 7. If the landing is successful, it will make India the fourth country in the world to successfully do a soft landing on the satellite’s surface. The previous moon mission Chandrayaan-1 had a hard landing on Moon’s surface.
So far, Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft has raised its orbit five times from July 23 to August 6. The spacecraft was launched on July 22 by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from the Sriharikota launch range on the GSLV MK-III rocket.
In order to insert Chandrayaan-2 into a lunar orbit, the spacecraft’s liquid engine will be fired again. Following this, there will be four more orbit manoeuvres, which will take the spacecraft into its final orbit. This process of manoeuvering in the lunar orbit will be taking place from August 21 to September 1.
Once Chandrayaan-2 is in the final orbit of the Moon, it will separate the Vikram lander from itself on September 2. It is the Vikram lander, which will make the soft landing on the moon. It will go through two more orbit manoeuvers before a powered descent for landing on the surface of the moon.
With the Vikram lander, ISRO will be landing an explorer on the southern pole of the Moon. This part of Earth’s satellite remains unexplored. ISRO had said in a statement that the south pole is especially interesting because of the lunar surface area here that remains in shadow is much larger than that at the north pole. India’s mission to the Moon will look for the presence of water in these areas.
Once the Vikram lander has successfully landed on the surface, the Pragyan rover will do the exploration. This is a six-wheeled, AI-powered vehicle, which will collect data from the Moon’s surface. The rover has two primary instruments. The Lander and Rover are designed to work for 14 days, which is one lunar day.
