If everything goes according to plan, the launcher will inject the spacecraft into an elliptical earth parking orbit with a perigee, or low point, of 170 kilometers and an apogee, or high point, of 40,400 kilometers. A series of orbit raising maneuvers will progressively raise the apogee of the spacecraft until it can be captured by the Moon’s gravity with an engine burn. Chandrayaan-2 will then perform a series of orbital maneuvers to reach a circular, 100-kilometer orbit around the Moon. The next phase of the mission involves separating the Vikram lander unit from the orbital unit of the spacecraft, and landing Vikram near the Moon’s south pole on 6 September 2019. The third phase of the mission involves the roll out of the Pragyan rover from the Vikram lander, and a subsequent 14-day mission for the rover involving various experiments.

The GSLV-MK3 launcher has already been integrated in the Vehicle Assembly building at the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota on the eastern coast of India.

Chandrayaan-1

Chandrayaan-2 is India’s second mission to the Moon. The first, Chandrayaan-1, was launched on 22 October 2008, and included an orbiter and a Moon impact probe—a small module that separated from the orbiter and impacted the Moon near Shackleton crater. The orbiter included several scientific instruments for creating a three-dimensional map of the Moon and analyzing its mineral composition. The spacecraft went into orbit around the Moon on 8 November 2008, and the Moon impact probe crash-landed on 14 November 2008. The instruments in the orbiter were subsequently activated, and operated normally for the next 10 months.

While it did not complete its mission life of 2 years, the Chandrayaan-1 mission had several achievements. It was the first interplanetary mission for ISRO, and heralded the way for other missions to follow, including one to Mars, and the upcoming Chandrayaan-2 mission. Its most significant scientific achievement was the discovery of water on the Moon. First, a mass spectrometer on the Moon Impact Probe detected water in the thin lunar atmosphere. Then, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument, developed by NASA and carried on the orbiter, detected water ice on the surface near the lunar poles. Additionally, the mini-SAR synthetic aperture radar developed by NASA and carried on the orbiter also found evidence consistent with the presence of water ice at the lunar north pole. Other achievements of the mission include the creation of detailed three-dimensional maps using over 70,000 images taken by its cameras, a study of the process by which water may form on the Moon, and a study of past tectonic activity on the Moon.