Bengaluru: India's second mission to the moon will likely launch in mid-July, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on Wednesday.
ISRO, which has been working on the Chandrayaan-2 for over three years, said it has zeroed in on a launch window between July 9 and July 16, with an expected landing on the moon by September 6.
In a press statement, ISRO said this mission will include a lander, an orbiter and a rover to take up experiments on the lunar surface. It is targetted to land on the south pole of the moon.
The launch will be on a GSLV Mk-III rocket into the outer earth orbit, the lunarcraft will be propelled into the moon's orbit by the orbiter, and it will soft land at a pre-determined site close to the south pole of the moon. After this the rover will roll out of the lander and carry out experiments.
Chandrayaan-1, the moon mission carried out in 2008, was hugely successful as it led to the discovery of water-ice particles on the moon's surface -- in that, the Moon Impact Probe jointly developed by ISRO and NASA, had done a hard-landing on the moon's surface.
Chandrayaan-1 had also done a 3D mapping of the moon, and captured high resolution pictures.
Chandrayaan-2 will include scientific experiments to explore the moon for presence of minerals, and particularly Helium 3, an element that could potentially be a major source of energy.
While the first moon mission included instruments from five other countries apart from India, Chandrayaan 2 will carry instruments from India alone.
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