India’s space agency is readying to launch a rocket as soon as Friday that will attempt to land a rover on the moon and mark the country’s arrival as a power in space exploration and the new frontier of space commerce. Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have made successful lunar landings. An attempt by a Japanese start-up earlier this year ended with the lander crashing. Built on a budget of just under $75 million, the Chandrayaan-3 is set to blast off from India’s main spaceport in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh at 2:35 p.m. local time (0905 GMT). If everything goes to plan, a 43.5 metre (143 ft) LVM3 launch rocket will blast the spacecraft into an elliptical Earth orbit before it loops toward the moon for a scheduled landing around Aug. 23. The launch by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is the country’s first major mission since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced policies to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.
Full story : India readies moon mission aimed to stake claim as a space power.
