With just a week to go until ISRO makes a historic attempt to land a rover on the moon’s unexplored south pole, the space agency has released a slew of teaser videos showing you exactly what the mission will look like.
ISRO’s multimedia campaign began the day before the Union Budget, with the release of videos titled ‘ISRO – Chandrayaan 2 Teaser’ dubbed in English and Hindi.
A little girl looks up at the sky with big, brown, curious eyes. She asks her father,“Look at the moon, Papa. I wonder what it’s like up there. I want to see it”. “Look here beta”, the father replies, “India has already reached the moon. When you grow up, you can as well.”
This is how the teaser video for the Chandrayaan-2 mission opened. Released on July 4 by the Press Information Bureau, the video traces the history of the lunar odyssey, from the Soviet Union’s Lunar 2 to the groundbreaking discovery of water within the moon by India’s own Chandrayaan-1.
It is lucid and well-crafted and makes us realise just how far India has come in terms of human space exploration and technological prowess. The same day, ISRO started a Twitter campaign asking viewers what they would like to carry to the moon, hashtagged #MoonEssentials.
Shortly after, on July 5, PIB released another video, this time featuring a fully-animated preview of what the entire mission will look like. You can watch it below.
Each stage of the mission is animated and displayed: From the launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) MkIII to the deployment and detachment of each of its three stages, the orbit raising manoeuvres of the orbiter allowing it to get enough momentum to reach the moon’s orbit, the soft landing of Vikram onto the moon, and the deployment of the rover Pragyan.
On July 8, ISRO released another teaser, purportedly narrated by the Orbiter showing you where the satellite was designed (the U.R. Rao satellite centre), the names of its ‘family members’ — the moon lander Vikram and the rover named Pragyan. This video also takes you through how the mission will proceed, explaining how it will help determine the history and evolution of the moon.
Background to India’s historic moon mission
The moon, which has influenced romantic imageries of both the Cold War and of Michael Jackson’s iconic dance moves, is the linchpin of India’s next big foray into space. The mission dubbed ‘India’s next big expedition’, is slated to launch on July 15, 2:51 AM, IST. Its predecessor Chandrayaan-1 brought a breakthrough in scientific research with the discovery of water molecules on the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-2, India’s most ambitious space expedition till-date, is scheduled to launch on board the GSLV Mk-III from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. This is the most powerful rocket India has ever built.
The mission aims to place the country’s first rover in lunar territory. Chandrayaan-2 is among the first lunar probes to explore the moon’s south pole region with a rover (China had earlier landed the Chang'e 4 with the same mission).
The spacecraft has an ambitious task; the probe is designed to soft-land on the moon’s south pole, a blind spot for previous lunar probes, while all its predecessors have landed near the equator. The project is designed to map the lunar surface and study variations in its composition to trace the origin of the moon, thus being the “key to our past” as described in the teaser. Further, the mission aims to explore the possibility of the presence of water molecules in the south pole.
If all goes well, July 15 will become a historic day for India. If you would like to view the launch from ISRO’s own viewing gallery near the launch site, read here for information on how to book a slot.