An ISRO release has said that Chandrayan-2, India's second mission to moon, is targeted for launch during 2013. An orbiter (satellite), a Lander and a rover will be part of this project. Chandrayaan-2 is planned to be launched onboard Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. While the lander will be provided by Russia, the orbiter and the rover are being built by ISRO.The Orbiter and Rover to be flown onboard Chandrayaan-2 have been finalised by a National committee of experts drawn from ISRO centres, academic institutions and R & D laboratories and Chaired by Prof U R Rao, Chairman, Advisory Committee on Space Sciences and former Chairman of ISRO.The committee, after detailed deliberations and considering the mission requirements, weight and power available for scientific payloads, has recommended five payloads to be flown on the orbiter of which three are new and two are improved versions of the payloads flown in Chandrayaan I. These are Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer, Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM), L and S band Synthetic Aperture Radar, Imaging IR Spectrometer, Neutral Mass Spectrometer and the Terrain Mapping Camera-2 (TMC-2) Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft weighs about 2,650 kg at lift-off of which the orbiter weight is about 1,400 kg and lander weight is about 1,250 kg. The release says that the development of the subsystems of the orbiter and the rover is in progress at ISRO centres in Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram and Ahmedabad.
News On AIR | August 30, 2010 8:21 PM
India to launch Chandrayan-2 by 2013: ISRO