India's second moon mission Chandrayaan-2 stuck in limbo - Indian Express

PTI : Bangalore, Thu Aug 01 2013, 14:15 hrs India's second mission to Moon appears headed for a prolonged delay following uncertainty over availability of lander from Russia even as the 'desi' rocket to launch the space odyssey would take time to become operational. The ambitious Chandrayaan-2 project seems to be in a limbo with both Indian and Russian sides beset with their own space technology-related issues, pushing the joint moon exploration mission, already hit by time overruns, to the back-burner. "Chandrayaan-2 is the logical extension of the first moon mission. In this mission a soft lander will place a rover on the moon's surface which will collect physical samples, analyse and send results to earth. This is the logical extension of Chandrayaan-1 to confirm the findings of remote sensing through physical tests," according to an official of Indian Space Research Organisation. ISRO and Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) signed an agreement on joint lunar research and exploration in November 2007, with the cooperation envisaging Chandrayaan-2, involving a lunar orbiting spacecraft and a lander/rover on the Moon's surface. It was agreed at the time that ISRO will have the prime responsibility for the orbiter and Roskosmos for the lander/rover, with the launch on India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) around the 2011-12 time frame. India undertook the maiden mission to Moon in 2008 and Chandrayaan-2 was positioned as the next logical step for more detailed and in situ study of the Moon. Declining to discuss the timeframe for the mission, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan, who is also Secretary in the Department of Space, said: "We will not be able to say that (time-line) because the uncertainty remains on the lander availability.'' After the failed Phobos-Grunt Russian sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, more than one-and-half years ago, Roscosmos indicated to ISRO in May 2012 a major programmatic change in the joint moon exploration. ... contd. ALSO READ Microsoft Office comes to Android, but not tablets Aakash 3: Better than its predecessor Videocon A24 budget smartphone launched at Rs 4,699 Moon mission to test laser spacecraft communications Please read our terms of use before posting comments TERMS OF USE: The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s). via Science - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFWcoHBiG_UrgRG7urp2CMmZ6xSnA&url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/indias-second-moon-mission-chandrayaan2-stuck-in-limbo/1149800/

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