BENGALURU: The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) confirmed — as Chinese space probe Chang’e 4 on Sunday moved into position to land on the far, unexplored side of the Moon — that it would not launch its second lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2 , on January 3 as announced earlier.The space agency, which is scrambling to launch the mission in the first available window in 2019, does not have a launch date as yet.Isro chairman Sivan K told TOI that the agency was busy with multiple launches in the second half of 2018 and this affected work on the moon mission. “At this moment I cannot comment on the date,” he said. “We will be able to decide on that in about 10 to 12 days.”Both Chang’e 4 and Chandrayaan-2 will aim to achieve “firsts” on the lunar soil. While the Chinese probe will be the first to land on the far or ‘dark’ side of the Moon, the hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, the lander from Chandrayaan-2 will touch down in an unexplored area near the lunar South Pole. Xinhua news agency reported that Chang’e 4 had entered a planned orbit on Sunday to prepare for the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon, but did not specify when the landing would take place.Isro is preparing to launch Chandrayaan-2, which missed two planned launch windows in 2017 and 2018, in a window from the first week of January to February 16.“Unlike a mission to Mars, we will not have to wait for two years to launch in case the window passes. But we are confident of launching it in the first window. Work is progressing well,” Sivan said.The mission, unlike Chandrayaan-1, involves a soft landing on the Moon and the unloading of a rover to study and take measurements from lunar surface. The orbiter will remain in a trajectory around the Moon. Initially, the project was to be a joint mission with Russian, whose space agency Roscosmos was to supply the lander. Isro decided to go solo when the deal fell through.After years of design and development, the entire project was reconfigured, which has prompted several changes to multiple systems.As per the first plan, the lander was to gradually descend from a height of 100km to 18km from the Moon’s surface. From there, the orientation would change, sending the lander in a slightly horizontal direction for about 8.5km, when mission control will make further changes in orientation and velocity for a soft landing.