TIRUCHY: The country’s second mission to the Moon, ‘Chandrayaan-II’ would be launched during March-April 2018, by using a Geosynchronous Satellite launch vehicle (GSLV MK II). This prestigious mission will include a lunar, Orbiter, lander and rover, said Dr. Mylswamy Annadurai, director, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru.

Addressing a press conference at Tiruchy on Saturday, he said that they were preparing three unmanned vehicles for the mission developed in India including an orbiter craft, to hover above the moon’s surface, a rover, and a lander to facilitate the landing of the rover safely on the moon. This lunar mission will use and test various new technologies and conduct further experiments. The wheeled rover will move on the lunar surface and will perform a chemical analysis on site, he said.

Dr Annadurai said the orbiter will orbit the moon at an attitude of 100-km and create a detailed three-dimensional map of the lunar surface. The mission will carry five instruments on the orbiter namely, a large area soft X-ray spectrometer for mapping significant elements there on the lunar surface, L and S band synthetic aperture radar for probing the first few tens of metres on the surface of the moon for presence of constituents like water.

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