india

Updated: May 22, 2019 09:18 IST

India’ ambitious moon mission Chandrayaan 2 will be launched after July 9, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman Dr. K Sivan said of the mission that missed an earlier launch window in January.

“Chandrayaan 2 is going to be a landmark mission for India which will be launched between July 9 and 16. Chandrayan 2 is the most challenging mission undertaken by ISRO. It will land at a place where nobody else has landed before,” Sivan said, according to news agency ANI.

The Chandrayaan-2, which is set to cost about Rs 800 crore, will involve unloading of a rover to study the Moon.

Speaking about the moon mission in January Sivan had said that ISRO was looking at having a woman astronaut in the mission, although he did not specify how many people would be a part of it.

“We want women astronauts also to be a part of the mission. In my opinion, we have to train both men and women,” Sivan had said in response to a question.

The ISRO chief also said there were plans to open ground stations in neighbouring countries as well as in Russia and Japan. “We need ground stations in neighbouring countries to achieve increased accuracy in navigation systems and mainly to download satellite data and this is a normal phenomenon globally,” Sivan said.