Countdown begins to see robotic Indian walking on Moon! Chandrayaan-2 to land on September 7

New Delhi, September 5: A moving step ahead to achieve its goal, Chandrayaan 2 has geared up to touch the South Pole of Moon around 1.40 AM on September 7. After a successful performance of the fifth and the final orbit maneuver to refine its circular path around the moon, the Vikram Lander successfully separated from Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on Monday.

 

The Lander is scheduled to make a powered descent between 1 am and 2 am on 7 September, followed by touchdown of the Lander in between 1:30 am and 2:30 am. Following the landing, the rover 'Pragyan' will roll out from the lander between 5.30 and 6.30 am on Saturday and carry out experiments on the lunar surface for 14 days, which is equivalent to one lunar day.

The orbiter will remain in its orbit for a planned one year. The composite Chandrayaan-2 has the orbiter, the lander and the rover. The 1.5-ton lander carries in its belly the 27 kg rover. The mission of the lander is to soft-land on the lunar South Pole and to safely unleash the rover. The lander and the rover have a mission life of a single lunar day or 14 days of the earth. The rover Pragyaan has two devices to probe the elemental composition of lunar soil near its landing site and derive the elemental abundance there.

India has prior experience of deploying orbiters around celestial bodies, the first one around the moon in the form of Chandrayaan-1 and the other one around the Mars in the form of Mangalyaan, though the configurations are different. However, this is the first time a lander is going to be deployed along with a rover after their indigenous development.