It could be a first of its kind landing of a rover on the Moon’s south pole  by attempting to launch India’s second lunar mission — Chandrayaan-2.

• No country has attempted to land a spacecraft in Moon’s South Pole region.
• The spacecraft has three modules: an orbiter, a lander (Vikram), and a rover (Pragyan).
• Most complex mission undertaken by the ISRO to date, primarily on account of the soft touchdown required at the chosen landing site - near the lunar south pole.
• The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on Chandrayaan-1, by comparison, had not been designed for a soft landing.
• GSLV Mk-III, which will be used to lift the spacecraft to the earth-bound orbit, will be carrying its heaviest payload to date - 3.8 tonnes.

The satellite would be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1 (Lagrangian point 1) which is 1.5 million kms from the Earth so that it has the advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation or eclipses.