Everything going as planned, India’s second lunar exploration mission Chandrayaan-II will be launched sometime during 2017. This ambitious probe to the earth’s closest celestial neighbour is a follow on to India’s maiden mission to moon Chandrayaan-1 launched in October, 2008. The most striking aspect of Chandrayaan-II will be that it would involve complex technologies including the release of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. This mission in particular would demonstrate the capability of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to manage soft-landing on an astronomical body.

   As envisaged now, Chandrayaan-II is planned to touch down on the polar region of the moon. While Chandrayaan-1 was a an orbiter mission with a Moon Impact Probe (MIP) that performed the crashlanding on lunar surface, Chandrayaan-II, in addition to an orbiter, will carry a soft landing probe to study the lunar samples. Chandrayaan-II, which will be....