India’s first moon lander stacked for launch

spaceflightnow.com ^ | July 9, 2019 | Stephen Clark

[BenLurkin]

Chandrayaan 2 is India’s first lunar landing mission, and the country’s second robotic mission to the moon following the launch of the Chandrayaan 1 orbiter in October 2008.

The launch Sunday will come two days before the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11.

If the landing is successful, India will become the fourth nation to accomplish a controlled soft landing on the moon, after the former Soviet Union, the United States and China. The Israeli non-profit SpaceIL attempted a landing on the moon in April with the Beresheet mission, but the privately-funded probe crashed on final descent.

Located at approximately 71 degrees south latitude, Chandrayaan 2’s target landing site is closer to the moon’s south pole than any previous mission, roughly 220 miles (350 kilometers) from the rim of the South Pole-Aitken basin.

Scientists believe he sprawling basin region is one of the most ancient impact sites in the solar system, created when a large asteroid or comet struck the moon billions of years ago.

For the first time, Chandrayaan 2’s rover could examine ancient material in the lunar crust ejected during the colossal collision that created the South Pole-Aitken basin, providing data that could yield clues about the solar system’s chaotic early history. The rover, named Pragyan, carries an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to measure the elemental composition of the rocks at the Chandrayaan 2 landing site, along with a laser-induced breakdown spectroscope.

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