NEW DELHI, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman S. Somanath on Monday said the country's third moon mission, Chandrayaan-3, will be launched in July this year.
Somanath made the remarks after the successful launch of the second-generation navigation satellite NSV-01 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, off the Bay of Bengal coast in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
On Monday, the navigational satellite weighing about 2,232 kg was launched on board an expendable Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.
In February this year, Chandrayaan-3 has successfully undergone a key test that ensures the functionality of the satellite subsystems in the space environment and their compatibility with the expected electromagnetic levels.
In 2021, India's federal junior minister for the Department of Space, Jitendra Singh, said the realization progress of Chandrayaan-3 was hampered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chandrayaan 2 was launched on July 22, 2019, from Sriharikota by ISRO. However, the mission lander lost contact shortly before the scheduled attempt to soft-land on the moon on Sept. 7, 2019.
Later on, the U.S. space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration said its satellite orbiting the moon found the debris of India's crashed moon lander Chandrayaan 2. ■