Launch rehearsal of Chandrayaan-2 mission completed successfully: ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday tweeted that the launch rehearsal of the Chandrayaan-2 mission has been completed and the performance was normal. It is to be noted that Chandrayaan-2 mission is scheduled to launch on July 22.

"Launch rehearsal of #GSLVMkIII-M1 / #Chandrayaan2 mission completed, performance normal #ISRO," tweeted ISRO.

Launch rehearsal of #GSLVMkIII-M1 / #Chandrayaan2 mission completed, performance normal#ISRO — ISRO (@isro) July 20, 2019

Earlier on Saturday, former ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar had said that the mission is ready for launch on July 22. "Chandrayaan-2 is now ready for launch on 22 July. We intend to move towards the moon on August 14 and land on the moon around September 6. All the activities are in full swing and we are getting ready for the event on July 22," the former ISRO chief told ANI.

Kumar also talked about the technical snag which had forced ISRO to abort the launch of the lunar mission on Monday (July 15) and said, "One of the issues, any system of this magnitude, we keep testing to various levels and during one of the levels we found that there was a shortcoming. So, that has been overcome. We are ready to go now."

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The launch on July 15 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre was put off after a technical snag was observed one hour before the scheduled liftoff. "As a measure of abundant precaution, #Chandrayaan2 launch has been called off for today. The revised launch date will be announced later," ISRO had announced.

Chandrayaan 2, India's most ambitious lunar mission, is to be launched onboard heavy-lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle - Mark III (GSLV Mk III), nicknamed as 'Bahubali'. Chandrayaan 2 will explore the south polar region of the moon. Interestingly, this part of the moon has never been explored in the past. 

According to ISRO, Chandrayaan-2's landing site, which is at a latitude of about 70 degrees south, is the southernmost for any mission till date. The spacecraft consists of an orbiter, a lander, and a rover together referred to as "composite body".