Chandrayaan 2's lander separation will take place around Monday noon: ISRO chief Sivan

ISRO chairman Dr K Sivan on Sunday said that after the final manuever of Chandrayaan 2 on Sunday evening the lander separation will take place around Monday noon. 

Talking to WION, the ISRO chief added that Chandrayaan 2's landing on moon's surface as scheduled earlier is expected at 1:55 AM on September 7. He noted that the parameters of the orbiter, lander, rover are in good condition.

It may be recalled that the fourth Lunar bound orbit manoeuvre for Chandrayaan-2 was performed successfully on Friday using the onboard propulsion system of the spacecraft. The duration of the maneuver was 1155 seconds.

"Fourth lunar bound orbit maneuvre for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was performed successfully on August 30  at 1818 hrs IST," ISRO said in a tweet. The Bengaluru-based space organisation had also said that all spacecraft parameters are normal so far.

Chandrayaan-2 managed to successfully enter the Moon’s orbit on the morning of August 20 and ISRO had later released a statement confirming the Lunar Orbit Insertion of Chandrayaan-2 at 9:02 am.

Chandrayaan 2 was launched from Satish Dhawan space centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh by India`s heavy-lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) on July 22. The successful launch was carried out exactly a week after the ISRO had aborted the launch on July 15, just 56 minutes before the launch due to a "technical snag".

The success of this mission will make India only the "fourth nation after the United States, China, and Russia to make a soft-landing on the lunar surface and the first nation to do so on the south pole of the lunar surface.

The mission includes four components: a GSLV Mk-III, an orbiter, a lander; and the small rover.