<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/in-rocket%20%281%29.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273" srcset="https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/in-rocket%20%281%29.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273 400w, https://s.w-x.co/util/image/w/in-rocket%20%281%29.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551 800w" > Representational image (L.R Shankar/BCCL/Chennai)

India is all set to propel its new endeavour, Chandrayaan-2, to the Moon later this year. According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), besides carrying 13 indigenously developed payloads, a rover, a lander and an orbiter, the Chandrayaan-2 will also carry American space agency NASA’s passive experimental module. NASA’s module is aimed at measuring the distance between the Earth and its only natural satellite.

Although NASA had confirmed about the collaboration with ISRO earlier this year in March, ISRO had not made any official announcements up until now. NASA had also sent one of its laser retroreflector arrays aboard the Israeli beresheet, which crash-landed on the moon’s surface on April 11.

Chandrayaan-1, which was touted as a huge success owing to its discovery of water on the moon’s surface, had carried a total of five foreign payloads, of which three were from Europe and two from the United States. Chandrayaan-2, a technological upgrade, is expected to take off for the moon between a tentative time-frame of 9th to 16th July. The lunarcraft, which weighs around 3.8 tonne is expected to soft-land on the moon’s south-pole on September 6.

Talking to the Times of India, ISRO chairman K Sivan said that once the lander Vikram lands on the moon on September 6, the rover Prayan will roll out on the lunar surface for 300-400 metre. Prayan is expected to spend 14 Earth days on the Moon and carry out different scientific experiments. The rover will analyse the content of the lunar surface and send data and images back to the Earth through the orbiter within 15 minutes.

Accompanying the rover (Pragyan), lander (Vikram) and NASA’s module will be 13 other Indian payloads, developed by various research institutes across the country to carry out a range of scientific experiments and collect data.

TOI reports that the 13 Indian payloads will include a large area soft X-Ray spectrometer (LASS) from Isro Satellite Centre (ISAC) and solar X-ray monitor (XSM) from Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), imaging IR spectrometer (IIRS) from Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, synthetic aperture radar in L- and S-band (SAR) from SAC, neutral mass spectrometer (CHACE-2) from Thiruvananthapuram centre, terrain mapping camera-2 (TMC-2) from SAC, Vikram lander sensor complement, radio anatomy of Moon bound hypersensitive ionosphere and atmosphere (RAMBHA), Chandra's surface thermo physical experiment (ChaSTE ), instrument for lunar seismic activity (ILSA), laser reflector array (LRA), rover sensor complement (APXS, LIBS) and laser induced breakdown spectroscope (LIBS).

Based on an article published in the Times of India.