Updated July 22nd, 2019 at 18:41 IST
Chandrayaan-2 Launch: Week-long delay in departure from Earth won't impact time of arrival on the Moon. Here's why
The spacecraft will spend six extra days in the earth's orbit and 15 lesser days around the Moon before it lands. It will land on the same day as scheduled before, said Indian Space research Organization (ISRO) officials, as per reports.
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ISRO launched its moon mission Chandrayaan-2, at the scheduled time of 2:43 PM on Monday, July 22, from Sriharikota. This moon-lander and rover mission aims to investigate the unexplored south pole of the Earth's moon. With Chandrayaan-2 India is aiming at a soft landing on the Moon, which, if successful, would make India just the fourth country after US, Russia and China to accomplish the feat. Due to a technical glitch, ISRO had delayed its launch on July 15. However, about 15 minutes after the launch on Monday, ISRO confirmed that the Chandrayaan-2 had successfully entered Earth's orbit.
Furthermore, despite the one-week delay, Chandrayaan-2 will still land on the Moon as per schedule on September 9. Here's how:
On-time in spite of delay:
The spacecraft will spend six extra days in the earth's orbit and 15 lesser days around the Moon before it lands. It will land on the same day as scheduled before, said Indian Space research Organization (ISRO) officials.
The lander-rover is designed to carry out experiments during one lunar day which is equal to 14 earth days and in order for the experiments to be carried out successfully, the lander-rover had to make ground on the same day as scheduled before.
To make sure that there are no lags in the originally planned timeline, there are minor changes made by the scientists in order to ensure that the spacecraft does not overshoot the moon or crash land at a spot that has not been designated for the mission. ISRO officials have reportedly said that minor adjustments to the orbit have been made and it will not affect the mission in any manner. During the initial planning of the mission, some redundancies had been introduced to ensure that the mission could be completed despite the possibility of glitches.
The crucial adjustment involves keeping the spacecraft in the Earth's orbit for six extra days in order to slow down the speed of the spacecraft as the Chandrayaan-2 will use the gravitational force of the Earth to slow it down before it catapults its way to the moon. The journey to the moon will take two additional days from the originally planned schedule.
What happens next?
After the initial thrust and separation of the first stage, the second stage has the core booster will power the rocket. This will help the rocket to continue orbiting the Earth till it enters the Moon's gravitational field. Once the rocket enters the lunar orbit, the lunar orbiter with eight payloads weighing 2310 kg including 1705 kg of propellant, will orbit the moon with a lunar orbit of 100 km.
Then the lander 'Vikram' named after India's space pioneer Vikram Sarabhai weighing 940 kg including 500 kg propellent with four payloads, will land on the moon after separating from the orbiter when it is near the lunar surface, descending slowly up to 30km for a soft landing approximately on September 9, according to ISRO.
Soon after that, the six-wheeled rover 'Pragyan' with two payloads weighing 25 kg having a 450W solar battery panel will ravel upto 500m before it loses power.
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Published July 22nd, 2019 at 17:25 IST
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