Chandrayaan takes about five days to reach the moon and would be placed in a 100-kilometre polar orbit
A 49-hour countdown for the launch of Chandrayaan-1, which means mooncraft in Sanskrit, began Monday at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota Island, 90 kilometres north of Chennai.
The 1,380-kilogramme spacecraft - built by India's national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization - is to be carried into lunar orbit by a four-stage rocket with six strap-on propellants weighing 12 tons each.
Should the mission to unravel the moon's mysteries be successful, it would catapult India into the club of space-faring countries, which includes the United States, Russia, Europe, China and Japan.
The Chandrayaan is to take about five days to reach the moon and would be placed in a 100-kilometre polar orbit, from where it is to study the moon for two years.
Scientists said that despite more than 65 manned and unmanned missions to the moon over the past half-century, not everything about the moon was understood.
The theory that the moon originated after a catastrophic collision of the Earth with a Mars-sized body more than 3 billion years ago was still unproven, they said.
The 1,380-kilogramme spacecraft - built by India's national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization - is to be carried into lunar orbit by a four-stage rocket with six strap-on propellants weighing 12 tons each.
Should the mission to unravel the moon's mysteries be successful, it would catapult India into the club of space-faring countries, which includes the United States, Russia, Europe, China and Japan.
The Chandrayaan is to take about five days to reach the moon and would be placed in a 100-kilometre polar orbit, from where it is to study the moon for two years.
Scientists said that despite more than 65 manned and unmanned missions to the moon over the past half-century, not everything about the moon was understood.
The theory that the moon originated after a catastrophic collision of the Earth with a Mars-sized body more than 3 billion years ago was still unproven, they said.
