‘Better late than never.’ This saying is true in the case of Chandrayaan 2. Though India was ready with all the payloads for the mission as per the schedule, it had to be first postponed to January 2013 and then to 2016. This happened because Russia was unable to develop the lander on time.
Later, Russia withdrew from the project following the failure of Fobos-Grunt, a Russian mission to one of the moons of Mars. The technology used in Fobos-Grunt was also used in the lunar project and needed reviewing. Finally, Russia backed out, failing to deliver the lander by 2015. Following this, ISRO decided to go ahead with the project independently.
After the development of the lander, Chandrayaan 2 was scheduled to be launched in March 2018. But, it was further delayed to conduct relevant tests and was planned for the first half of 2019.
Picture Credit : Google