Chandrayaan-2 mission "EMPOWER IAS"

Context:

The Indian Space Research Organisation said it has released the first set of data from the country’s second mission to the Moon, the Chandrayaan-2, for the general public.

Key points

Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22, 2019 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
The Orbiter which was injected into a lunar orbit on September 2, 2019, carries eight experiments to address many open questions on lunar science.
The Chandrayaan-2 data is required to be in the Planetary Data System-4 (PDS4) standard, and is required to be peer reviewed scientifically.
The Chandrayaan-2 mission was India’s first attempt to land on the lunar surface.
ISRO had planned the landing on the South Pole of the lunar surface. However, the lander Vikram hard-landed in September last year. 9935149106
Its orbiter, which is still in the lunar orbit, has a mission life of seven years.

Chandrayaan-2 mission:

In September 2008, the Chandrayaan-2 mission was approved by the government for a cost of Rs 425 crore.
It is India’s second mission to the moon.
It aims to explore the Moon’s south polar region.
The mission is an important step in India’s plans for planetary exploration, a program known as Planetary Science and Exploration (PLANEX).
There are three components of the mission, an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
The mission payloads include — Terrain Mapping Camera which will generate a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the entire moon, Chandrayaan 2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer which will test the elemental composition of the Moon’s surface Solar X-Ray Monitor which will provide solar X-ray spectrum inputs for CLASS.
The orbiter will be deployed at an altitude of 100 kilometers above the surface of the Moon. The lander will then separate from the orbiter, and execute a soft landing on the surface of the Moon, unlike the previous mission which crash landed near the lunar south pole.
The lander, rover and orbiter will perform mineralogical and elemental studies of the lunar surface.
The rover is named Pragyan.
The mission’s lander is named Vikram after Dr Vikram A Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme.

Objectives of the mission:

The primary objective of Chandrayaan-2 is to demonstrate the ability to soft-land on the lunar surface and operate a robotic rover on the surface. Scientific goals include studies of lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, the lunar exosphere, and signatures of hydroxyl and water ice.

Highlights of Chandrayaan 2

Chandrayaan 2 fostered the findings of Chandrayaan 1 as reported by the ISRO.
The mission targeted the “South Polar region” of the Moon which was completely unexplored.
The mission focused on the extensive mapping of the lunar surface for studying variations in its composition and tracing the Moon’s origin and evolution.
Chandrayaan 2 was considered as a challenging mission as the South Polar Region of the Moon was totally unexplored by any space agency before.

Components of Chandrayaan – 2: Launch Vehicle

The Chandrayaan-2 mission consisted of three main modules:

lunar orbiter
Vikram lander (named after Vikram Sarabhai, the late father of India’s space program)
lunar rover named Pragyan

India: Fourth Country to Land a Spacecraft on Moon:

India will become the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon. So far, all the landings have been in the areas close to the Moon’s equator.
This is mainly because, this area receives more sunlight, which is required by solar powered instruments.
But Chandrayaan-2 will make a landing at a site where no earlier mission has gone, i.e., near the South Pole of the Moon. It can contain clues to the fossil records of early Solar System.
The unexplored territory gives an opportunity for the Mission to discover something new. The South Pole of the Moon holds possibility of presence of water. In addition, this area is also supposed to have ancient rocks and craters that can offer indications of history of the Moon.

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