Chandrayaan-3 launch may happen next year, training for astronauts to kickstart soon in Russia: ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Sivan on Wednesday said at a press conference that the country’s third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 project has been approved by the Central government and the launch would happen next year. The training of astronauts for the mission named 'Gaganyaan' would commence from the third week of January in Russia.

Earlier, Union Minister Jitendra Singh announced that India will launch Chandrayaan-3 in 2020.

Sivan said, “All activities related to the third lunar mission were going on smoothly.”

On the information about the astronauts, the ISRO chief K Sivan said that the training of astronauts would start from the third week of this month (January) in Russia.

“It will also have a lander, rover and a propulsion module like its predecessor. The mission would cost ₹250 crore," he added.

ISRO chief also congratulated the Chennai based techie who recently located the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2 that hard-landed, further added that it was the space agency's policy not to release picture of the crashed module, "We know where it crashed and where it is located,"

To a question on what went wrong with Vikram lander, he said the reason behind the crash landing of Vikram lander was due to velocity reduction failure.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission was India's first attempt to land on lunar surface by ISRO on the South Pole of the moon.