National space agency, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has completed the design of Chandrayaan-2, with the collaboration of Russia’s Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos).
Chandrayaan-2 consists of the spacecraft and a landing platform with the moon rover, which can collect samples of the lunar soil and analyze them and send back the data. India will be building the orbital flight vehicle, while the ‘Lunar Craft’ will be supplied by Russia.
The Chandrayaan 2 mission will consist of a lunar rover that will be dropped on to the lunar surface once the craft reaches the lunar orbit. The main duty of the rover would be to collect and analyze lunar soil and transmit the data back to the data centers on earth. Pertinent to note here is the fact that while the spacecraft would be indigenously made, the lunar rover will be made by Russia.
The Chandrayaan 2 is expected to be operational in the next two years, after the life of the existing Chandrayaan 1 almost comes to an end.
“Right now, the design has been completed. We had a joint review with Russian scientists here,” chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) G. Madhavan Nair said.
According to Isro, the mission would have an orbital flight vehicle constituting an orbital craft and a lunar craft that would carry a soft landing system up to lunar transfer trajectory.
While Isro will be developing the orbiter, it will be Russia’s job to make the lander and the rover. Additional scientific payloads would be acquired from the international scientific community.
Via: Techtree
