Officials exude confidence of Chandraayan's perfect launch

Chennai, Oct 20 (UNI) It's been raining at India's spaceport of Sriharikota since this noon but the officials at the SHAR Centre exuded confidence of a perfect launch of Chandraayan-I by the PSLV-CII at 0620 hrs on October 22.

''The countdown for India's maiden unmanned Moon Mission, which began in the morning, has been progressing smoothly without any hitch.

''It has been raining in Sriharikota. But it should not pose any problem as there is no forecast of any cyclone formation for the next two days,'' ISRO sources told UNI today.

''The state-of-the-art Second Launch Pad, from where the PSLV rocket carrying Chandraayan-I and 11 other payloads will blast off, is all weather proof and the Launch Vehicle can also withstand rains. Only rain will not pose any problem,'' the sources said.

''As of now, there is no change in the launch time of 0620 hrs on Wednesday. The final countdown is progressing smoothly''.

Meanwhile, the weather office sources told UNI here that the trough of Low Pressure over the South West Bay and adjoining West Central Bay off Tamil Nadu and South Coastal Andhra Pradesh still persisted.

Under its influence most places in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry would experience isolated heavy rains during the next 24 hours.

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