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CHENNAI: Tests for a controlled soft-landing of Chandarayaan-2 on the surface of the moon is underway in a simulated environment, Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar said on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the seventh annual convocation of Vels University , he said, “Isro will develop an engine that will help in the controlled landing on the moon. The mission is currently planned for the first quarter of 2018.“

He said that Chandarayaan-2 would be different because “it will have controlled descent onto the surface of the moon, for which we have to develop an engine that is throttleable“.

Kumar said they had created an artificial crater to simulate the surface of lunar conditions for the landing experiments. A series of ground tests is also in progress at the Isro facility in Mahendragiri, Tirunelveli district, and in Challakere, in Chitradurga district near Bengaluru. “The satellite is also getting ready,“ he added.

The Isro chief had earlier said that unlike Chandarayaan-1 , which had only orbited the moon, the second mission to the moon would have a 6ft-long rover that will conduct in situ soil analysis after the soft-landing on the moon's surface .

At the moment, scientists at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota are gearing for the launch of a Saarc satellite on board GSLV MK-II by March-end and the first developmental flight of GSLV MK-III in April.

On Isro's next inter-planetary mission, Kumar said they would secure necessary approvals from the Centre based on findings of a team that currently conducting discussions and studies and on advice from the advisory committee.

Atomic Energy Commission chairman Sekhar Basu, present at the event, said they were in the process of obtaining approvals from regulatory agencies for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo-India) near Pune.

