Chandrayaan-2 heads for the Moon

India’s Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft plans to land a briefcase-sized rover on the Moon, 600km from the lunar south pole, while an orbiter above searches for water — vital to future manned missions


Spacecraft originally due to launch in 2018. Design changes increase mass,
requiring larger launch vehicle


PAYLOAD

Lander (with rover)

Orbiter: Carries five scientific instruments

100km: Altitude of lunar orbit

Sea of Tranquility (Apollo 11)

Chandrayaan-2 rover landing site


VIKRAM LANDER AND PRAGYAN ROVER

India would become fourth country to land probe on Moon

Lander: Equipped with seismometer to detect moonquakes and Langmuir probe to measure plasma fluctuations

Door/ramp

Landing skid

Solar panel

Solar panel and antenna

Navigation cameras

Rover: Will move around near landing site in semi-autonomous mode, observing lunar surface and analysing soil


Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III
(GSLV Mk III)

43.4m


New Delhi
INDIA
Sriharikota Island


Sources: Science, Futurism, Spaceflight Insider, Planetary Society, ISRO, NASA 
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