BENGALURU: India’s second moon mission Chandrayaan-2 will now be launched in the January-March window in 2019 instead of later this year as the design was changed to enable it land on the lunar surface, a top ISRO official said here today.
“We have planned to launch Chandrayaan mission in January 3. We are fixing with that (date) and targeting that. But that is an open window. We can go up to March also. As we are coming closer (the date), we may miss the target,” he said.
The reason for postponing the mission was that there were certain important changes made in the design so that it could easily land on the lunar surface, he said.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a function, where bust of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the architect of the Indian space mission, was unveiled.
Asked why the weight of Chandrayaan-2 was increased by 600 kg, he said ISRO noticed during experiments that after the moon lander was ejected, the satellite would shake. So they decided that the design modification was required for landing and mass has to be increased.
“We also realised that the orbiter required more phases, which required more fuel,” he told reporters.
On the space agency’s future missions, Sivan said ISRO also plans to launch 50 satellites in the next three years. (AGENCIES)
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