India Moon Mission: Take Two

India is preparing to re-launch an unmanned spacecraft to the moon today, after the mission was aborted last week Monday, 15 July, due to a technical fault.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) explained that the spacecraft – called Chandrayaan-2 – had its countdown stopped just 56 minutes before launch, because a “technical snag was observed in [the] launch vehicle system”.

Local news sources reported that ISRO scientists discovered a leak during the filling of the cryogenic engine of the rocket. The ISRO has only confirmed that a problem had been identified and resolved.

Chandrayaan-2 – the Sanskrit word for “moon-craft” – is expected to fire up its engines at 09:13 GMT today, 22 July.

It is designed to land on the lunar south pole and will send a rover to explore liquid deposits that were discovered by a previous orbital mission – Chandrayaan-1 – in 2008.

ISRO has plans in place to send off its first manned spaceflight by 2022.

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