Chandrayaan-2 mission launch is called off due to technical problems

Just a few minutes before the launch of the Chandrayaan-2 was called off due to a technical snag. The mission was taking place at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The Indian Space Research Organisation early Monday morning made an announcement from its control room stating that the mission has been called off. The news led to a lot of commotion in the media gallery of the SHAR where journalists from not only different parts of the country but abroad to cover the most high-profile launch.

A few minutes later, an official spokesperson of ISRO made the announcement in his Twitter post that:

“A technical snag was detected in the launch vehicle system at T-56 minute. As a measure of abundant precaution Chandrayaan-2 launch is called off. A revised launched date will soon be announced.”

Had the GSLV MKIII lifted off with Chandrayaan-2 and the lunar craft landed on the moon according to its scheduled date of September 6-7, India would become the fourth country in the world after USSR, US and China to land on the moon.

This postponement is a major setback for ISRO as President Ram Nath Kovind came to Sriharikota to witness the grand launch of Chnadrayaan-2. However, ISRO is in no mood to take any chances as they have spent nearly Rs 1000 crore on the entire mission. Not just that, but they have also put in years of hard work on the second moon program. As of now, it is not informed whether they are going to resume the launch soon or not. Right now ISRO is trying to find out the reason behind the technical snag in the vehicle system and this is going to take some time.

In April this year, Israel’s Beresheet lunar craft had crash-landed on the moon. Soon after the failure of Israel’s Beresheet mission, ISRO had postponed its launch date from April to July. Now with this technical snag being detected, it is going to take more time for them to decide on the launch date. Unless everything is fixed, we have to wait.