Vikram’s one-day research on moon equal to 14 days study on earth: ISRO

Vikram is designed to function for one lunar day, which is equivalent to about 14 earth days. Major activities in the coming days include the Earth-bound manoeuvres, trans-lunar insertion, lunar-bound manoeuvres, lander Vikram separation and Vikram touchdown on the moon’s south pole.

“Earth-bound manoeuvres are planned to be executed from Wednesday onwards, culminating into trans lunar insertion scheduled on August 14, which will send the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to moon”, the space agency said.

Accordingly, the spacecraft is scheduled to reach the moon by August 20 and lander Vikram will touch the surface of the moon on September 7 this year. The GSLV rocket had successfully placed the Chandrayaan-2 satellite into the required orbit on July 22.

Vikram has the capacity to communicate with the ISRO moon mission room and as well as with the orbiter and Pragyan rover. The lander is designed to execute a soft landing on the lunar surface at a touchdown velocity of two meters per second.

Chandrayaan-2’s rover Pragyan is a six-wheeled robotic vehicle that can travel up to 500 metres at a speed of one centimetre per second and leverages solar energy for its functioning. It can communicate with the lander.

India on Monday successfully launched the ambitious mission on board its powerful rocket GSLV MkIII M1 from a spaceport in Sriharikota to explore the uncharted south pole territory of the moon.