Chandrayaan-2 to carry 13 payloads, 1 passive experiment from NASA: ISRO
India's second Moon mission that is planned for a July launch will have 13 payloads and one passive experiment from American space agency NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Wednesday. "Thirteen Indian payloads (8 on orbiter, 3 on lander and 2 on rover) and one passive experiment from NASA," ISRO said in a mission update, but did not specify them or their objective. The spacecraft with a mass of 3.8 tonnes has three modules--Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). All the modules are getting ready for Chandrayaan-2 launch during the window of July 9 to July 16, 2019, with an expected Moon landing on September 6, the space agency had said earlier this month. The orbiter will orbit 100 km from the lunar surface, while lander (Vikram) will do the soft landing near the south pole of moon, and Rover (Pragyan) will conduct in-situ experiments. The orbiter and lander modules will be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an ...