On the 22nd of July 2019, India’s GSLV Mk-III will
toake off from “SHAR” with a rover to
the moon, the main aim of this mission is
to land the rover on the  Moon’s south
polar region, a feat not previously achieved
by any other country. Only three countries
have landed rovers on Moon the US, Russia,
and China, but none have gone where India
hopes to with its Chandrayaan-2 mission.
In this episode of the One Minute Facts, we
will briefly look at Chandrayaan-2, India’s
second mission to Moon. If you are new to
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For those of you who don’t know anything
about ISRO, The Indian Space Research Organisation
is the space agency of the Government of India
headquartered in the city of Bengaluru. Its
vision is to “harness 
 space technology for national development
while pursuing space science research and
planetary exploration.
Since it’s formation on the 15th of August
1969 ISRO has added many records to its bucket
from placing an orbiter over the Mars atmosphere
in its first attempt to launching 104 satellites
in a single go.
Here is a Fun Fact for you - India was the
first country to discover water on the Moon’s
surface in 2008 on its first lunar Mission
Chandrayaan -1.
so, why this mission is so special to India?
On 12 November 2007, representatives of the Russian
Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and ISRO
signed an agreement for the two agencies to
work together on the Chandrayaan-2 project.
ISRO would have the prime responsibility for
the orbiter and rover, while Roscosmos was
to provide the lander. The Indian government approved
the mission in a meeting of the Union Cabinet,
held on 18 September 2008 and chaired by then Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. The design of the
spacecraft
 was completed in August 2009, with scientists
of both countries conducting a joint review.
Although ISRO completed the payload for Chandrayaan-2
per schedule, the mission was postponed
in January 2013 and rescheduled to 2016 because
Russia was unable to develop the lander on
time.
Roscosmos later withdrew in wake of the
failure of the Fobos-Grunt mission to Mars,
since the
 technical aspects connected with the Fobos-Grunt
mission were also used in the lunar projects,
 which needed to be reviewed. When Russia
cited its inability to provide the lander
even by 2015,
India decided to develop the lunar mission
independently.
Chandrayaan-2 mission includes an orbiter,
a lander called Vikram, and a rover named
Pragyaan. The main objective of the Chandrayaan-2
mission is to build  upon the work done by
its predecessor and soft land on the lunar
surface to
study our planet’s natural satellite.
Mission Chandrayaan-2 is the first worldwide
to conduct a soft landing on the moon’s
South Polar Region.
 It is also India’s first space project
to attempt a soft landing on the lunar surface
using indigenously
developed technology. With Chandrayaan-2,
India will become the fourth country in the
world to soft
 land on the moon.
The GSLV Mk-III, which is a is a three-stage
medium-lift launch vehicle developed by the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
is the launcher chosen for the Chandrayaan-2
mission.chandrayaan- 1 has done a crash landing
on the moon with its impact probe and placed
a flag on the moon but this time Rover would
make
a soft landing on the moon with the lander,
Well the rover itself weighs about 20 kg and
will function
solely on solar power. It uses six wheels
to navigate across the surface and will collect
rock and
soil samples to be analyzed and the data it
gathers will be transmitted back to Earth.
India has chosen an unmapped region on the
moon, its south pole at a latitude of 70°,
Every landing on the moon has been done on
a northern hemisphere of the moon and the
the southern region remains unexplored. The
southern region of the moon gets very low
sunlight so there are better chances of finding
water.
While it was initially reported that NASA and ESA would
take part in the mission by providing some
scientific instruments for the orbiter, ISRO
in 2010 had clarified that because of weight
restrictions
it will not be carrying foreign payloads on
this mission. However, in the last moment
update,
just a month before the launch of the mission,
a small laser retroreflector from NASA was
added
to the lander’s payload to help scientists
measure exact distances to the Moon.
Chandrayaan-2 stack would be initially put
in an Earth parking orbit of 170 km perigee
and 40,400 km
apogee by the launch vehicle. It will then
perform orbit-raising operations followed
by trans-lunar
injection using its own power.
The orbiter will orbit the Moon at an altitude
of 100 km (62 mi). The Orbiter High-Resolution
Camera (OHRC) will conduct high-resolution
observations of the landing site prior to
the separation of the lander from the orbiter.
On Successful Examination, The mission’s
lander Vikram will detach from the orbiter
and descend to a lunar orbit.  It will then
perform a comprehensive check of all its onboard
systems before attempting to land on the lunar
surface.
The mission’s rover is called Pragyan will
operate on solar power. The rover will move
on 6 wheels traversing
The 500-meter distance on the lunar surface
at 1 cm per second, performing on-site chemical
analysis and sending the data to the lander
which will relay it to the Earth station.
The expected operating time of Pragyaan rover
is one lunar day or around 14 Earth days
but its power systems have a solar-powered
sleep/wake-up cycle implemented, which could
result in a longer life than planned.
All in all  The whole project would cost US$141 million,
which is less than the budget of the movie
Interstellar.
With Chandrayaan-2, Isro hopes to give India
and the world a better understanding of the
origins
of the Moon and, as the space agency puts
it, “inch towards the edge of discovery”.
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