ISRO Chandrayaan 2: About it; Why was it called off? What is planned next?

ISRO officials claimed that every one of the thirteen modules had its own set of scientific experiments and objectives. The lander and rover will only be functional for fourteen days or one lunar day whereas the Orbiter will continue its mission for a year. If everything goes according to plan, the lander will touchdown near the South Pole of the Moon on 6 September 2019.

Former Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist Ravi Gupta gave the decision to call off Monday’s launch of the second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 and said that it was done at the right time before the occurrence of any big mishap with the vessel.

Chandrayaan 2, the successor to ISRO’s Chandrayaan 1 mission that confirmed the presence of water on the moon – a landmark achievement – was scheduled to spend 14 Earth days checking for more water reserves on the Moon but due to the cancellation of the mission, it is postponed till further notice.

What Now?

Apart from its disheartening tweet announcing that the Chandrayaan-2 mission has been called off, for now, the Indian Space Research Organisation has also not said much about what happens next.

However, a report by the news agency Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), said that the space agency will now focus on investigating what went wrong on the GSLV Mk-III and will soon provide a new launch date.

Significantly, the problem was observed on board the Rocket and not the Chandrayaan-2 payload, which means that the entire mission is not currently in jeopardy and will surely take a slightly long time to be rectified.