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The launch of the second Indian lunar mission, Chandrayaan 2, on the night of Sunday to Monday, July 15, with an arrival on the Moon scheduled for September. India, the fourth country to achieve a moon landing, confirms its spectacular advances in the space sector for more than 10 years.
With our correspondent in New Delhi, Antoine Guinard
The countdown has begun for the Indian Space Agency (ISRO) , which is due to launch its second lunar mission at 2:51 am local time Monday, July 15, from the Sriharikota Space Center, an island located along the east coast of the country.
The unmanned Indian mission is composed of three elements, designed by ISRO: an orbiter, a lunar landing module and finally a vehicle capable of traversing the surface of the moon. This last gear, which is planned to reach the south pole of the moon on September 6, will allow to harvest for 14 days samples taken from the ground - in order, among other things, to identify and predict the seismic activity.
India had already successfully completed its first Chandrayaan mission (lunar vehicle, in Sanskrit), by laying a probe on the moon in November 2008, becoming the fourth country after the United States, the Soviet Union and China. The mission led to the discovery of water molecules.
In 2014, India placed a probe in orbit of Mars, then broke a record three years later by launching 104 satellites in orbit with the same rocket .
The country of Narendra Modi does not stop there: India announced last December the sending of three astronauts into space by 2022 , becoming, again, the fourth country to achieve this.
12 hours to go ... For the launch of # Chandrayaan2 onboard # GSLVMkIII-M1
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