BENGALURU: The Indian Space Research Organisation ( Isro ), which had to call off the July 15 launch of Chandrayaan-2 in the eleventh hour, on Thursday announced July 22 as the rescheduled date for launch.

Confirming TOI's report from July 15, which had said that the next launch could be as early as July 22 (Monday) and that a decision could be taken by Wednesday, Isro, in an official statement released on Thursday said: "Chandrayaan-2 launch is now rescheduled on July 22, 2019 at 2.43pm", from the second launchpad at the spaceport in Sriharikota.

An expert committee constituted to analyse the issue-the July 15 launch was cancelled after a leak in the cryogenic stage of the launch vehicle was detected-has suggested remedial action, which has been implemented.

Sources said that the new launch date was finalised late on Wednesday. "The expert committee identified the root cause of the technical snag and all corrective actions are implemented," Isro said, without elaborating on what the "root cause" was.

Chandrayaan-2 is India's second Moon mission, which unlike its first mission (Chandrayaan-1), involves Isro soft-landing a lander (Vikram) and operating a robotic rover (Pragyan) on the lunar surface, while an Orbiter goes circles Moon in a 100km X 100km orbit.

Cleared in September 2008, one month before India launched its first lunar mission, the cost of Chandrayaan-2 is Rs 978 crore, and it will carry 14 payloads, including a passive payload from US' Nasa.

If India manages to successfully land Vikram on Moon-Isro chairman K Sivan has said the landing process is the 'most terrifying'-it will only be the fourth nation after the erstwhile USSR (now Russia), US and China to do so.

While Isro has a host of objectives for Chandrayaan-2, including its hopes of unraveling some secrets about the evolution of the solar system, the most critical will be to re-confirm the presence of water on Moon, and it try and map its presence.

While Isro's quick turnaround from July 15 is indicative of how keen the agency is on utilising the earliest available launch window, it also shows that the glitch that prevented the initial launch was a "not serious," as one source said. On July 15, Isro had said that it had called off the launch exercising "abundant caution".



In Video: ISRO fixes date of Chandrayaan-2 re-launch on July 22