Chandrayaan 2 was launched on board from Sriharikota today at 2:43p.m from the second launchpad at Satish Dhawan Space centre, over 100km from Chennai. After ISRO’s successful launch of Chandrayaan 1, Chandrayaan 2 has been launched after 11 years. On a cloudy day today, thousands of spectators from the viewers’ gallery cheered the thunderous liftoff of Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO). Although there was a delay in the launch of Chandrayaan 2, but ISRO chairman K Sivan assured that the Vikram Lander will soft land on the moon on September 6-7 as planned earlier. He feels that it is a historical journey.

The countdown for the 44 metre long GSLV Mark 3, which is ISRO’s  largest and most powerful rocket, began on Sunday evening at 6.43 pm. With the successful landing of Vikram, India will be the fourth country to soft land on the moon. On landing, Pragyan, the housing rover will come out of   Vikram after 4 hours and roll out at a speed of 1cm per sec. During its lunar span of 1 day ( 14 days on earth), Pragyan will move upto 500 metre on moon. It will take images and analyse data and send it back to earth through Vikram within 15 minutes. The orbiter will continue to circle around Moon for over a year. Chandrayaan 2 will do a detailed study of topography, seismography, mineral identification and distribution, surface chemical composition of tenuous lunar atmosphere for understanding the origin and evolution  of the moon.

On the successful launch, the prime Minister in a twitter message said, “Efforts such as Chandrayaan 2 will further encourage our bright youngsters towards science, top quality research and innovation. Thanks to Chandrayaan, India’s Lunar Programme will get a substantial boost. Our existing knowledge of the Moon will be significantly enhanced,”