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India's taking another shot at making it to the moon

The country's moon lander and rover was scheduled to leave this year, but has been delayed till January next year.

Aloysius Low Senior Editor
Aloysius Low is a Senior Editor at CNET covering mobile and Asia. Based in Singapore, he loves playing Dota 2 when he can spare the time and is also the owner-minion of two adorable cats.
Aloysius Low
INDIA-SPACE-SATELLITE

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) navigation satellite IRNSS-1I, on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C41), lifts off at the Satish Dawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in the state of Andhra Pradesh on April 12, 2018.

Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images

India's not flying to the moon for now.

The country's space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, told reporters earlier this week that its second spacecraft, the Chandrayaan 2, which had been scheduled to depart in October, will take place next year instead, with a launch window from January to March, reports Nature.

The trip to the moon will include a moon lander and rover, with a redesign of the lander cited as one of the reasons for the delay. The moon landing won't involve astronauts, unlike the Apollo missions from the 1970s. India launched its first craft to the Moon, Chandrayaan-1, in 2008, and will send a person into space in 2022.

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