Chandrayaan 2 satellite will be launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on July 15.
India's moon mission Chandrayaan 2 will be launched on Sunday midnight. It is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was launched about 10 years ago. Chandrayaan-2 is an indigenous moon mission that will carry an orbiter, a lander called Vikram and rover called Pragyaan. Chandrayaan-2 will use country's powerful rocket launcher, Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (GSLV Mk III), to carry the 2.4 tonne orbiter. This rocket launcher is referred as "Baahubali". It weighs nearly 640 tonnes and stands 44 metres tall.
Chandrayaan 2: Launch and landing date, time:
Chandrayaan-2 satellite will be launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on July 15, Sunday at 2:51am.
Chandrayaan-2 satellite is likely to land on the Moon near the South Pole, an uncharted territory so far, in about 50 days on September 6 or 7.
Chandrayaan-2: Expectations
With Chandrayaan 2, India will continue its search for water on the lunar surface. Earlier, Chandrayaan-1 in 2009 made the breakthrough of discovering the presence of water molecules on the Moon's surface.
Former ISRO Chairman AS Kiran Kumar said that the mission is going near the South Pole where no one has gone before. "You can expect to find something different only when you look at newer places," the chairman said.
Chandrayaan 2 is a robotic mission and will carry no human beings to the moon surface. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to send a manned mission into orbit by 2022.
If India succeeds in soft landing on the moon, it will become the fourth country to do so after the US, Russia and China.