India calls off Chandrayaan 2 lunar mission due to ‘technical snag’ less than an hour before launch

14 Jul, 2019 20:51 / Updated 5 years ago

India’s mission to the unexplored regions of the Moon, Chandrayaan 2, was postponed as a precaution due to a technical glitch 56 minutes before the launch. The country’s space agency will announced the revised launch date later.

No additional details about the problem or the new date of the launch have yet been revealed by the Indian Space Research Organization.

It was planned that Chandrayaan 2 would blast into space from the Sriharikota launch site on the coast of the Bay of Bengal at 02:51 local time on July 15 (21:21 GMT July 14).

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The ambitious space project, which ISRO head Kailasavadivoo Sivan called “the most complex mission” his agency has “ever undertaken,” includes an orbiter, a lander, and a rover, as well as an array of scientific instruments. It would make India the fourth country to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon, after the US, Russia, and China.

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