As most of India slept, ISRO's Chandrayaan 2 mission was supposed to blast off at 2:51 am from Shriharikota's launchpad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
But a last minute technical snag meant the highly anticipated Chandrayaan 2 launch had to be called off, with ISRO not wanting to risk the mission in its final stages before liftoff.
ISRO
With having put years of research and engineering effort, ISRO erred on the side of caution as it halted the launch of Chandrayaan 2 exactly 56 minutes before it was supposed to liftoff for its moonly abode.
As the world and India's media waited with bated breath to see Chandrayaan 2 take-off on the shoulders of GSLV-MKIII, an ISRO spokesperson confirmed the reason of the delay.
"A technical snag was observed in launch vehicle system at T-56 minute. Chandrayaan 2 launch has been called off for today. Revised launch date will be announced later," read the official ISRO statement on the Chandrayaan 2 delay.
ISRO tweet
Had the GSLV MKIII lifted off with Chandrayaan 2 and the lunar craft landed on the moon on its scheduled date of September 6-7, India would have become only the fourth country in the world after USSR, US and China to land a spacecraft successfully on the moon's surface.
It is unclear right now whether the "technical snag" that delayed ISRO's Chandrayaan 2 launch can be solved within this week for a new launch date to be announced soon. But given ISRO's cautious approach, they will leave no stone unturned trying to find and fix the error in the launch sequence rather than jeopardise years of hard work.?
In fact, it will be great if ISRO doesn't rush the Chandrayaan 2 launch, if recent history has anything to teach us. Just in April this year, Israel's Beresheet lunar craft had crash landed on the moon's surface, after which ISRO postponed its launch of Chandrayaan 2 from April till July.
People online are reacting pretty positively to the whole Chandrayaan 2 launch:
Now we have to wait for a little more for Chandrayaan 2 launch and keep its date with the moon. Better late than never, right?