Chandrayaan-3 launch in 2021 without orbiter; Chandrayaan-1 images reveal moon is rusting

Chandrayaan-3 launch in 2021 without orbiter; Chandrayaan-1 images reveal moon is rusting
The announcement was made by Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday where he revealed that the mission to Moon won’t include an orbiter just like the Chandrayaan-2. But, it’ll include a rover and a lander.

EDS: VIDEO GRAB Soft landing of Vikram module of Chandrayaan 2 on lunar surface (PTI Photo)
Chandrayaan-3’s launch has been delayed thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic and it’ll be launched early next year rather than the last half of 2020. The announcement was made by Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday where he revealed that the mission to Moon won’t include an orbiter just like the Chandrayaan-2. But, it’ll include a rover and a lander.

Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram Lander crashed last year and its debris was found afterward by NASA. Following the unsuccessful landing on Moon’s South Pole , the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had said that it’s plans to launch another mission to the Moon in 2020.

Recently, data from the ISRO suggested that Moon could be rusting. within the study, it’s mentioned that the moon is popping slightly red, which indicates that there’s a formation of a reddish-black mineral sort of iron named hematite on its surface, especially at the poles.

Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (MoS) for the Department of Space said Chandrayaan-1 which was launched in 2008 has transmitted images suggesting Moon could also be rusting.

“The sign of this finding is that albeit the surface of the Moon is understood to possess iron-rich rocks, it’s not known for the presence of water and oxygen, which are the 2 elements needed to interact with iron to make rust,” Singh said.

On the opposite hand, NASA’s JPL scientists Abigail Fraeman and Vivian Sun were surprised by the findings of Chandrayaan-1 “very puzzling”. They added: “At first, I totally didn’t believe it. It shouldn’t exist supported the conditions present on the Moon,” Fraeman said. “But since we discovered water on the Moon, people are speculating that there might be a greater sort of minerals than we realize if that water had reacted with rocks.”

Also, the training processes and other procedures for India’s first-ever Human Space mission Gaganyaan despite things created by the pandemic.

Singh said, “Constraints thanks to the COVID pandemic led to some disruptions within the plan for Gaganyaan but efforts are happening to stay to the timeline of around 2022.”

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