India Launches 2nd Mission to Moon

India on Monday launched an ambitious mission to soft-land on the surface of the moon and deploy a rover, seeking to become only the fourth country to do so after Russia, the US and China.

Chandrayaan-2, Sanskrit for "moon vehicle," lifted off at 2:43 p.m. local time from the spaceport of Sriharikota in the country's south, Nikkei reported.

The first attempt to launch the mission on July 15 was aborted at the eleventh hour due to a technical glitch. An expert committee, formed to analyze the issue and suggest remedial action, said it had "identified the root cause of the technical snag and all corrective actions had been implemented," according to a brief statement from India's space agency on July 18.