New Delhi: Buoyed by the success of Chandrayaan-I mission which was meant to orbit the Moon, India will launch the second ambitious mission to land a rover there in the next two to three years.
The Chandrayaan-II will have indigenously developed rover and a lander using the Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
“Chandrayaan-II is a mission where we essentially need to move on (lunar) surface to conduct experiments. We will launch Chandrayaan-II with an indigenous rover and lander using GSLV by 2016 or 2017,” Space Secretary K Radhakrishnan said at a press conference here.
Chandrayaan-I, India's first mission to Moon, was launched successfully on October 22, 2008 from Sriharikota.
The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon.
