India counts down to first lunar mission
India began the countdown yesterday to the launch of its first unmanned mission to the moon that will mark a giant catch-up step with Japan and China in the fast-developing Asian space race.
The lunar-orbiting spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1, is scheduled to blast off aboard an Indian-built rocket at 6:20 am (0050 GMT) tomorrow (Wednesday) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on India's southeastern coast.
"Everything is going perfectly as planned," the centre's associate director M.Y.S. Prasad told AFP from Sriharikota, 80 kilometres north of Chennai, after the official countdown began in the early hours of Monday.
The launch is a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with regional space competitors Japan and China. Last month, China became only the third country in the world to independently carry out a space walk.
All three countries have eyes on a share of the commercial satellite launch business and also see their space programmes as an important symbol of international stature and economic development.
Comments