The giant heavy-lift rocket carrying India's moon mission Chandrayaan 2 lifted off from its launch pad at Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota at 2:43 pm today. India's space scientists had a narrow one-minute window for their second attempt at launching the moon mission today, a week after the mission was aborted 56 minutes before lift-off. "I am extremely happy to announce that GSLV Mark 3 successfully injected the Chandrayaan 2 into orbit... It is the beginning of a historical journey for India... We fixed a serious technical snag and ISRO bounced back with flying colours," ISRO Chairman K Sivan said, drawing loud applause from the scientists gathered around him at the control centre.