India reschedules botched ‘world first’ Moon mission for Monday after failed launch last week
INDIA’S space agency has announced that it will now be launching a spacecraft to the south pole of the Moon on Monday after a first botched attempt this week.
Chandrayaan-2 will now be launched at 09:13 GMT on 22 July and, if successful, will make India the fourth country to conduct a soft Moon landing.
The original countdown for this mission had to be stopped 56 minutes before the launch time.
The space agency said this was because a “technical snag was observed in launch vehicle system”.
It is thought that the technical snag holding back the £110million moon mission was a launchpad glitch, which left the 640-tonne, 44m-tall rocket grounded.
The Chandrayaan rocket – the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit – is designed for a soft landing on the lunar south pole.
If the rocket reaches the Moon like it is intended to, scientists back on Earth then plan to deploy a rover from the unmanned spacecraft to explore water deposits confirmed by a previous Indian space mission.
If India did manage the soft landing, it would be only the fourth to do so after the US, Russia and China.
Repeated delays meant India missed the chance to achieve the first soft landing near the lunar south pole.
The South Pole is a current target for exploration for lots of space agencies, including Nasa, because scientists have observed evidence of lots of ice in the craters there.
The presence of ice means that moon water could potentially be used as a resource for future missions.
Moon water could help astronauts explore the moon for longer or even stay there.
The Moon – our closest neighbour explained
Here's what you need to know...
- The Moon is a natural satellite – a space-faring body that orbits a planet
- It’s Earth’s only natural satellite, and is the fifth biggest in the Solar System
- The Moon measures 2,158 miles across, roughly 0.27 times the diameter of Earth
- Temperatures on the Moon range from minus 173 degrees Celcius to 260 degrees Celcius
- Experts assumed the Moon was another planet, until Nicolaus Copernicus outlined his theory about our Solar System in 1543
- It was eventually assigned to a “class” after Galileo discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610
- The Moon is believed to have formed around 4.51billion years ago
- The strength of its gravitational field is about a sixth of Earth’s gravity
- Earth and the Moon have “synchronous rotation”, which means we always see the same side of the Moon – hence the phrase “dark side of the Moon”
- The Moon’s surface is actually dark, but appears bright in the sky due to its reflective ground
- During a solar eclipse, the Moon covers the Sun almost completely. Both objects appear a similar size in the sky because the Sun is both 400 times larger and farther
- The first spacecraft to reach the Moon was in 1959, as part of the Soviet Union’s Lunar program
- The first manned orbital mission was Nasa’s Apollo 8 in 1968
- And the first manned lunar landing was in 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 mission
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In other news, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins slams Nasa’s plot to return to Moon – says ‘aim for Mars instead’.
And, here are some fascinating facts that you didn’t know about the 1969 Moon Landing mission.
Are you planning to watch India’s Moon mission launch on Monday? Let us know in the comments…
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