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Chandrayaan II, India’s second mission to the moon, will be launched in 2017-18. Chandrayaan-I, India’s first lunar probe, was launched on October 22, 2008 from the Sriharikota spaceport, near Chennai.
The upcoming mission has an orbiter, lander and rover configuration. It is planned to be launched during 2017- 2018 by Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, informed Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh in a written reply to an unstarred question in the Rajya Sabha today.
Isro officials had earlier said that the launch will happen in the fifth sojourn of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark II launch vehicle. The first trip of the GSLV Mark II, which can carry a payload of 2.5 tonnes, was in January 2014.
Chandrayaan-II would be indigenous. Originally, Isro was planning to source lander from Russia, but now its developing its own technology.
According to Isro, the mission will use and test various new technologies and conduct new experiments. The wheeled rover will move on the lunar surface and will pick up soil or rock samples for on-site chemical analysis. The data will be relayed to Earth through the Chandrayaan-II orbiter.
