New Delhi (AFP)
The orbiter and lander of the Indian Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission on Monday managed to separate them, the Indian space agency ISRO announced, four days before the landing attempt on the South Asian giant's moon.
LG Vikram successfully separated from the Chandrayan-2 orbiter today (2 September 2019) at 13:15 Indian time, 07:45 GMT, the ISRO announced on Twitter, while the mission is currently gravitating around the moon.
The uninhabited expedition, which began on July 22, aims to land a lander and a mobile robot near the South Pole of the Moon, some 384,000 km from Earth, on the night of September 6-7.
If the mission were successful, India would become the fourth nation to successfully place a device on the Selenite soil, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China. An Israeli probe missed its moon landing in April and crashed.
The launcher was not powerful enough to reach the Moon directly, so the mission powered up using the force of gravity.
Chandrayaan-2 - "Lunar Trolley" in Hindi - circled the Earth for several weeks, gradually raising its orbit, to reach the lunar orbit.
The robot named Pragyaan - "wisdom" - must perform its task during a lunar day, the equivalent of fourteen Earth days. He will study the rocks and the ground of the lunar surface.
The Moon has been relatively neglected by humans since the end of the American Apollo program in the 1970s, with large space agencies preferring to study and explore the solar system.
But the satellite of the Earth is the object of renewed interest in recent years. The man, who has not walked the ground since 1972, is preparing for his return and plans, in the longer term, to establish a sustainable way.
ISRO is planning to send a crew of three astronauts into space by 2022, which would be his first manned flight. Its scientists are also working on the development of its own space station, expected over the next decade.
© 2019 AFP