Chandrayaan-2 countdown starts after technical snag rescheduled launch

India’s space agency at 6.45 pm Sunday began the countdown to launch its second lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, a week after calling off the event due to a “technical snag”.

Chandrayaan-2 will be launched atop a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) MkIII, India's most powerful rocket. It will carry an orbiter, a lander called Vikram and a rover called Pragyan, which has been almost entirely designed and made in India.

The orbiter is planned to circle the Moon for about one year, imaging the surface and studying the atmosphere.

The rocket is scheduled to liftoff at 2:43 pm IST on Monday,