Chandrayaan 2, india's high-profile lunar mission lifted off from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh today making a billion people in india proud. Chandrayaan 2 was supposed to be aborted last week after a technical glitch was discovered. The 3,850 kg Chandrayaan 2, a three-component spacecraft comprising an orbiter, lander, and rover, will explore the unchartered lunar south pole.
The three-stage GSLV Mk-III rocket successfully went through all the three stages and successfully injected Chandrayaan-2 into a lower Earth orbit shortly after launch. The mission comes 11 years after ISRO's successful first lunar mission Chandrayaan 1. The earlier mission made history by making more than 3,400 orbits around the moon and was operational for 312 days till August 29, 2009.
Chandrayaan-2's success will make india the fourth country after the US, russia, and china to pull off a soft landing on the moon. ISRO's budget is less than 20 times that of USA's NASA. The success of the mission would be a giant boost for india's space plans.
