NEW DELHI: With Nasa disclosing that its payload on board India’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter has found “frozen water deposits in polar regions of the moon”, Indian Space Research Organisation ’s Chandrayaan-2 mission, to be launched in the first week of January, will get an edge as it is going for deeper exploration in the same region — the south pole of the moon.Talking to TOI, Isro chairman K Sivan said, “Nasa findings are good and useful for the lunar exploration. The Chandrayaan-2 lander will do a soft-landing on the south pole of the moon and the rover will analyse the content there. The mission will give us more data, which will enrich our knowledge about the moon.” He said further exploration will help us find out if humans can inhabit the place in future.Sivan said, “The three key components of Chandrayaan-2 — orbiter, lander and rover—will carry 13 payloads for mapping terrain and look for minerals, water or ice formations. Unlike last time when Chandrayaan-1 carried foreign payloads, this time there won’t be any.”Launched in October 2008, Chandrayaan-1 carried payloads from the US, UK, Germany, Bulgaria and Sweden.On Nasa’s payload Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) finding water in the shadows of the crater, former Isro chief Kiran Kumar told TOI, “Had we not launched Chandrayaan-1, foreign payloads like Nasa’s M3 would not have made this significant discovery. Nasa acknowledges this fact.”On Chandrayaan-2, Kiran Kumar said, “significant improvement has been made on scientific payloads this time for wider and deeper exploration. The payload in the Chandrayaan-1 orbiter could scan wavelength up to 3 micron but we have increased the capacity of the Chandrayaan-2 payload. It can scan wavelength up to 5 micron or 5,000 nano metre (our eyes can see wavelength of 400 to 700 nano metre). So, whatever is emitted from the lunar surface or reflected from it will be picked up by this payload. It will improve the assessment of the lunar surface.”He said, “The laser instrument on the rover will fire laser pulses at the lunar surface, which will thus emit ions. These ion emissions will be scanned and will help the rover analyse the content.”Upbeat with moon findings, Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine , in a TV interview in Washington on Tuesday, said he has a vision for renewed and “sustainable” human exploration of the moon. However, with the Chandrayaan-2 mission planned in January, India will get an edge over other countries in exploring the moon further.