Chandrayaan 2 to be launched in 2013
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 28 January 2010, 23:59 IST   |    1 Comments
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Bangalore: K Radhakrishnan, Chief of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has said that Chandrayaan-2 will be launched in 2013, and currently the configuration is being finalized. Chandrayaan-2, which will be a joint effort between ISRO and Russia, will consist of a lander and a rover for a soft land on moon, reports Economic Times. "We are finalising the configuration for Chandrayaan-2. This mission will have an orbiter, which will carry the lander and a rover. The lander will bring the rover to the surface of the moon and during the time it is there, (it) will take some samples to be analysed in the orbiter and back to the earth. In the orbiter we will have certain instruments, we are finalising which are those to be put there. It is about 50 kilograms of mass. There is a scientific team which is looking at the requirements and possibilities and also... from Chandrayaan-1 experiment," said Radhakrishnan, on the sidelines of the launch of a book titled 'Mission Moon - Exploring the Moon with Chandrayaan-1' here. Rover's main mission will be to pick up samples of rocks and soil on moon and conduct a chemical analysis on it. The data would then be sent to the spacecraft orbiting above. "The lunar environment neither has an atmosphere nor a magnetic field, so the radiation from the sun can directly hit us and severely damage our cells, which can cause cancer. So you need to get into areas where you can avoid radiation; therefore, the concept of tunnel came in. We are trying to look at tunnels where one can get in and live. Though virtually from a big civilisation we will all become cavemen again," said Kasturi Rangan, former ISRO Chairman. ISRO launched Chandrayaan - 1 on October 22, 2008 and it was successful in detecting water on moon.

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