What time is Chandrayaan 2 landing?

Chandrayaan 2 Moon Landing Time: The Chandrayaan-2 will perform the soft landing on the surface of the Moon between 1:30 am and 2:30 am on September 7, 2019.

Chandrayaan-2 landing on the Moon on September 7: Key timings to keep in mind

Chandrayaan 2 Moon Landing Date and Time: Chandayaan-2 will soft-land on Moon on September 7. (Image source: ISRO)

Chandrayaan 2 Moon Landing Date and Time: Chandrayaan-2 mission is set to perform a soft-landing in the unexplored South Pole region of the Moon on September 7. The Vikram Lander has successfully separated from Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on Monday afternoon, and it is currently on its way to land on the Moon.

A successful landing on the Moon will make India the fourth nation to perform soft-landing on the lunar surface and the first nation to touch down the South Pole region of the Moon. So far, the United States, the former USSR, and China are the only nations who have managed the feat.

Chandrayaan 2 Moon Landing Date and Time

Using the onboard propulsion system, the Vikram Lander is approaching the Moon carrying the Pragyaan Rover. It will make contact with the lunar surface between 1:30 am and 2:30 am on September 7, 2019, which is later night. The rover will roll out between 5:30 am and 6:30 am on the early morning of September 7.

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Chandrayaan-2 Moon Landing LIVE updates

Recently, the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft performed second de-manoeuvre on Wednesday. With this manoeuvre, the Vikram Lander achieved the required orbit to commence its descent towards the surface of the Moon.

#ISRO
The second de-orbiting maneuver for #Chandrayaan spacecraft was performed successfully today (September 04, 2019) beginning at 0342 hrs IST.

For details please see https://t.co/GiKDS6CmxE

— ISRO (@isro) September 3, 2019

The orbit of Vikram Lander is currently 35km x 101km. The Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in an orbit of 96 km x 125 km. ISRO notified that both the Orbiter and Lander are healthy.

ISRO will telecast the updates on its website, isro.gov.in and the same will stream on the press information bureau of India’s YouTube channel as well. The official Twitter handle of ISRO will also give updates on the Chandrayaan-2.

Chandrayaan 2: Wait to see the descent is futile

There is disappointment for people waiting to watch the Vikram lander on Chandrayaan-2 descend on to the moon’s surface. There would be no video of the event. Not only there is no way to watch it descending live, that descent cannot be seen ever. That is because that is no external camera that can capture the lander’s descent.

The camera on the main spacecraft, which is orbiting the moon in a near-circular orbit of about 100 km, will not be in a position to capture the landing. And the lander cannot use its own camera to shoot itself.

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It is, however, possible that the camera on the Vikram lander would be able to take images of the moon’s surface as it gets near to the landing. These images could be beamed back live. However, for a few hours after the landing there would be a state of a near-complete blackout and no images would be sent. That is because the landing would cause a lot of dust on lunar surface to rise. Because the moon has very low gravity, this dust would take some time to settle down. This is also the reason why the Pragyaan rover would emerge from the lander module only a few hours after the landing.

Once the Pragyaan is out on the moon’s surface, however, the master control facility in Bengaluru would be able to see the images of both the lander and rover. Both of these modules have cameras and can capture each other. Pragyaan can only communicate with the Vikram lander, and Vikram can ‘talk’ directly to the master control facility on earth.