Chandrayaan-2 launch postponed to October, much still needs to be done: ISRO chief

The launch of India's second lunar mission 'Chandrayaan-2', slated for next month, has been postponed to October as the experts have suggested some tests, the ISRO said today.

The experts had met recently and suggested the tests, following which the mission will now be launched in October, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K Sivan said.

"Chandrayaan 2 will not be in April, it has been changed to October," he told reporters at the airport here.

Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, in-charge of the Department of Space, Jitendra Singh had on February 16 last said the lunar mission under which the ISRO will for the first time attempt to land a rover on the moon's south pole, will be launched in April.

Sivan had earlier said the window to launch the Rs 800 crore mission was between April and November 2018. It was stated the lunar mission was not yet ready for an April lift-off and much still needs to be done. If the mission is launched in October, it will mark the 10th anniversary of the launch of the first Indian lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, which lifted off on October 22, 2008.

It will be the first lunar mission globally to execute a soft-landing in a particular region of the moon’s south pole, which will be a nailbiting manoeuvre . It will also be the first mission to have the hyper spectral imager in the infrared region.

While the "targeted date" was April, ISRO would launch the mission in October or November, he had said.

According to ISRO, Chandrayaan-2 is a "totally indigenous mission comprising an orbiter, lander and rover". The Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft weighing around 3,290 kg would orbit around the moon and perform the objectives of remote sensing the moon.

"The payloads will collect scientific information on lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, lunar exosphere and signatures of hydroxyl and water-ice," ISRO said on its website about the lunar mission.