‘Chandrayaan 3’ Mission to Launch in 2020, Confirms ISRO

Jan. 2, 2020

ISRO is not letting thefailure of its Chandrayaan-2 missionto thwart its ambitions of becoming a space superpower in the coming decade. In an interview with reporters at the organization’s headquarters in Bengaluru this week, ISRO Chairman K. Sivan said that the government has approved the Chandrayaan-3 mission that will have a lander and a rover, but not an orbiter.

According to him, the mission will have a ‘similar configuration’ to that of the previous mission whichsuccessfully deployed a lunar orbiterthat relays scientific data back to earth, but wasunable to stick the landingthat would have made India the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to make a successful soft-landing on the moon and the first to do so on the dark side. Thedebris of the Vikram landerwas also recently spotted on the Moon thanks to images taken by NASA’s LRO.

While the modalities of the new mission are still being worked out, Sivan expressed confidence that it will most likely happen this year. Interestingly, with many of the logistics and research already taken care of, this particular mission is said to cost significantly lower than Chandrayaan-2.

Featured Image Courtesy: ISRO

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