Everyone Is Going To The Moon

India counts down to first lunar mission, AFP

“India began the countdown Monday 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) on 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 (50 miles) north of Chennai, after the official countdown began in the early hours of Monday.”