India today moved a step closer to launch its maiden unmanned moon mission when the lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-I was today mated with the polar rocket which is set to blast off on October 22 from the Sriharikota spaceport.
Gearing up for the final countdown, Space officials said all operations for the mission are progressing satisfactorily and barring a cyclone threat, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) will keep the date with the country’s historic mission on October 22 at 6.20 AM.
"The heat-shield closing operations around the spacecraft have been completed. Integrated test of the homegrown launch vehicle (PSLV-C11) is progressing satisfactorily for the launch on October 22 at 0620 hours", ISRO spokesperson S Satish told PTI in Bangalore.
Satish said the 52-hour countdown for the blast-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, 100 km from Chennai, is expected to commence in the early hours of October 20.
The Centre’s Associate Director Dr M Y S Prasad said "the next stage is to shift the 1,300 kg spacecraft to the launch pad and it will be done either this evening or tomorrow morning".
Prasad said that a series of tests would be conducted before the launch. "After conducting a series of tests, the launching would be as per schedule on October 22 morning," he told PTI in Chennai over phone from Sriharikota.
Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G Madhavan Nair told PTI, "right now, people are working round-the-clock. There is a lot of excitement but at the same time lot of apprehension also".