India Plans Second Shot at Moon Mission Days After Failed Launch

(Bloomberg) -- India will have another go next week at reaching the moon, days after aborting the mission minutes before the planned liftoff.

Chandrayaan-2, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, will make a fresh attempt to launch on July 22, the Indian Space Research Organisation said. The mission was scrapped early on Monday with 56 minutes left on the countdown because of a technical problem.

The failure was a setback to an ambitious plan to become the first nation to land on the south pole of Earth’s closest neighbor, 50 years ago after man first walked on the moon. The rescheduled launch is sooner than experts predicted. Some expected a delay of several months due to the complexity of the project.

India is seeking to join an elite club of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. and China in making a soft landing on the moon, in which vehicles touch down without damage. According to the original schedule, its spacecraft was set to land on Sept. 6.

Space-faring nations, as well as billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson, are competing in an unofficial space race, from launching satellites to sending astronauts and paying tourists into space.

The aim of the Chandrayaan-2 mission is to explore virgin territory on the lunar surface and analyze crust samples for signs of water and helium-3. That isotope is limited on Earth yet so abundant on the moon that it theoretically could meet global energy demands for 250 years if harnessed.

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