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Chandrayaan-2: India aborts first moon landing mission less than an hour before launch due to ‘technical snag’
- No new date set for launch of unmanned craft, which was expected to touch down on the unexplored lunar south pole in early September
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India on Monday postponed the launch of a lunar probe less than an hour before blast-off because of a technical problem, delaying its bid to become only the fourth nation to land a spacecraft on the moon.
The Chandrayaan-2 – or Moon Chariot 2 – mission is part of India’s ambitious space programme, and its success would have propelled the South Asian nation into rarefied company: Russia, the United States and China are the only countries to have landed craft on the lunar surface.
The spacecraft looked set for launch atop a Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle Mk III – India’s most powerful rocket – from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, but countdown was halted 56 minutes and 24 seconds before the planned lift-off at 2:51am local time.
“A technical snag was observed in launch vehicle system at one hour before the launch,” the Indian Space Research Organisation said.
“As a measure of abundant precaution Chandrayaan-2 launch has been called off for today. Revised launch date will be announced later.”
The agency did not say when it would attempt the launch again, and did not share any details about the technical issue.
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