SRIHARIKOTA: Just two days after the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of human landing on Moon , India on Monday successfully launched its lander-rover mission to Earth's only natural satellite. GSLV-MkIII , carrying the Chandrayaan-2 module on its tip, lifted off at 2.43pm without a glitch and released the lunarcraft to its desired geo-transfer orbit after 15 minutes. Unlike July 15 when a glitch in the cryo upper stage of the rocket led to stalling of the launch, this time it was a textbook launch as thousands of spectators at the viewers' gallery here cheered the thunderous lift off of Isro 's 'Bahubali' on a cloudy day from the second launchpad. If the lander successfully lands on Moon after 48 days, India will become the fourth country after the USSR, the US and China to soft land on the lunar surface.Calling the successful launch a "historic day for India and space science", Isro chairman K Sivan announced, "GSLV Mk III has successfully injected Chandrayaan-2 in its desired orbit. In fact, the orbit is 6,000km more than what we expected. Now, the spacecraft and its team will have more life and fuel for manoeuvres. It is a beginning of historical journey of India towards Moon and to land at a place near South Pole to carry out scientific experiments."Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who watched the live telecast of the launch, said: "Special moments that will be etched in the annals of our glorious history. The launch of Chandrayaan-2 illustrates the prowess of our scientists and the determination of 130 crore Indians to scale new frontiers of science. Every Indian is immensely proud today."On the snag that was developed during the first attempt to launch Chandrayaan-2 mission on July 15, Sivan said, "After a serious technical snag was developed, the entire team of Isro swung into action. The snag was fixed within 24 hours. In the next one-and-a-half days, the required tests were conducted to ensure corrections made were in the right direction. The team forgot about their families, sacrificed their interests and worked in non-stop mode to ensure the snag was fixed. The team specially constituted to handle the snag was on the job for the last seven days to ensure every system was functioning properly. After the fall, the successful launch is a double sweet for us." The chairman said that "GSLV performance has increased by 15 per cent and therefore Mark III has attained 4-tonne (lifting) capability to GTO as we designed."Sivan said, "Chandrayaan-2 is actually three satellite missions stacked in a single launch vehicle mission. Out of the three, two systems are totally new to us — Vikram lander and rover Pragyan. In the last one-and-half years, the satellite team has burnt midnight oil to make the Chandrayaan-2 as per the suggestion given by the national committee. They worked without any holiday."On the lunar module's onward journey, Sivan said, "The Chandrayaan-2 team will now perform 15 very crucial manoeuvres in the coming one-and-half months to take Chandrayaan-2 towards Moon. After the 15-minute terrifying moment (during the final descent), it (lander) will land safely on Moon. We will ensure the Indian flag flies high in this specific technology area." Though the launch has been delayed by a week, the Isro chairman had a few days ago told TOI that "Vikram lander will soft land on Moon on September 6-7 as initially planned" despite the fact that the number of days of the mission has been curtailed from 54 days to 48 days.Chandrayaan-2 will remain in Earth's elliptical orbit for around 22 days when five orbit-raising manoeuvres will be conducted to move it away from Earth's gravitational pull. Thereafter, the lunarcraft will be moved into trans lunar injection (TLI) on the 23rd day for its onward journey to the lunar orbit during which it will travel a distance of 3,84,000km from Earth to Moon. After eight days, the Chandrayaan-2 team, led by project director M Vanitha and mission director Ritu Karidhal, will oversee the lunar orbit insertion, the next most challenging part of the country's second moon mission. This part of the mission deals with slowing the speed of the lunarcraft so that it gets captured by Moon's gravity to help it enter the lunar orbit.Had it been launched on July 15, Chandrayaan-2 would have reached Moon in 22 days, after which it would have gone around the lunar orbit for 28 days before Vikram's separation from the orbiter. Now as per the revised schedule, the module will remain in the 100km x 100km lunar orbit for 13 days.On 43th day after the launch, lander 'Vikram' housing rover 'Pragyan' will get separated from the orbiter. Vikram needs to go around Moon in a 30km x 100km orbit before initiating deboosting procedures on Day 44. On 48th day, the final descent of Vikram will start and it will attempt landing on Moon. On landing, Pragyan will come out of Vikram after four hours. It will roll out at a speed of 1cm per second. During its lifespan of one lunar day (14 Earth days), Pragyan will move up to 500 metre on Moon. It will take images and analyse content on the lunar surface and send back data via Vikram or the orbiter to Earth within 15 minutes.While Vikram and Pragyan will last for a lunar day, the orbiter will continue to circle around Moon for over a year during which it will also map Moon and take images of different areas to look for water and "new science". A passive payload of Nasa , Laser Retroreflector Array, attached to Vikram will calculate the distance between the Earth and Moon and help detect the exact location of the lander on Moon.Chandrayaan-2 is loaded with 13 payloads that will do a detailed study of topography, seismography, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition, thermo-physical characteristics of top soil and composition of the tenuous lunar atmosphere for a new understanding of the origin and evolution of Moon.