India's Moon Mission - Chandrayaan - I

India has successfully launched its maiden moon spacecraft (which is called Chandrayaan in Sanskrit) into Transfer Orbit around the earth with the Polar Launch Vehicle PSLV-C11. Its a very proud moment for every Indian to have their own moon spacecraft , being launched by their own scientific bros, from within India . It will be a much prouder moment once the spacecraft reaches the orbit 100kms away from moon (after 16 days) and then leaving an impression of its tri-colour national flag on moon's surface.The Chandrayaan will first make a few revolutions around the Earth so that it gathers enough momentum to reach the moon.But it will take several days before it covers the 4 lakh kilometers to reach its destination. The satellite will be captured by moon's gravity and initially it will revolve nearly a thousand kilometers from the moon's surface.But finally it will move closer to nearly 100 kilometers literally over the moon.Once that's done, it will spend the next two years mapping the moon's surface and sending data to India.

Launch details

India’s first unmanned flight to the moon blasted off from Sriharikota, off the Andhra Pradesh coast, early morning on 22nd Oct and started to cruise around the earth in its designated orbit, minutes after a copybook liftoff. Carrying over a billion hopes, India's maiden lunar mission began its historic journey to the moon on Wednesday when an indigenously developed rocket placed the spacecraft into the Transfer Orbit "perfectly".

A 44-metre-tall and 316-tonne rocket called the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C11) carried the 1,380-kg lunar orbiter from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, , about 80 km north of Chennai, at exactly 0622 hrs IST.After 18.2 minutes of the lift-off, ISRO's warhorse rocket injected Chandrayaan-I into earth orbit.The cuboid spacecraft built by the Indian Space Research Organisation – likely to be injected into Moon’s orbit on November 8 – has launched the country into the elite club that has sent missions to the moon.

Mission objective

The objectives of the mission are to expand scientific knowledge about the moon, to upgrade India's technological capability and provide opportunities for planetary research to the younger generation of scientists and technologists."Chandrayaan-1 aims to achieve these objectives through high resolution of the moon in the visible, near infrared, microwave and x-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum," mission director M. Annadurai told IANS.A three-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface and chemical mapping of the entire lunar surface are the other objectives of the mission.

Mission Details in a NutShell

• The unmanned rocket is called Chandrayaan-1. It costs 3.86 billion rupees ($79 million), has a take-off weight of more than 1.3 tonnes, and is being sent on a two-year mission to orbit the moon.
• India will be the third Asian country to send an unmanned mission into the lunar orbit. Chandrayaan-1 is much cheaper than spacecrafts launched by India's Asian rivals. China's first lunar probe cost over $187 million when it launched in October 2007, while Japan's Kayuga, launched in September 2007, cost $480 million.
• Chandrayaan ("moon vehicle") plans to map a three-dimensional atlas of the moon, and the surface's chemical and mineral composition.
• The rocket carries 11 payloads -- five from India, two from the USA, and one each from Germany, Britain, Sweden and Bulgaria.
• India plans to send an astronaut into space by 2014 and a manned mission to the moon by 2020. The Indian government has approved the launch of Chandrayaan-2, which is expected to take off between 2010 and 2012, and will include a rover that will land on the moon.

Payload details

• The Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) has 5 m resolution and a 40 km swath in the panchromatic band and will be used to produce a high-resolution map of the Moon.
• The Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI) will perform mineralogical mapping in the 400-900 nm band with a spectral resolution of 15 nm and a spatial resolution of 80 m.
• The Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) will determine the surface topography.
• The Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) will determine the surface topography.
• An X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (C1XS) covering 1- 10 keV with a ground resolution of 25 km and a Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) to detect solar flux in the 1–10 keV range.
• A High Energy X-ray/gamma ray spectrometer (HEX) for 30- 200 keV measurements with ground resolution of 40 km, the HEX will measure U, Th, 210Pb, 222Rn degassing, and other radioactive elements .
• Moon Impact probe(MIP) developed by the ISRO, is a small satellite that will be carried by Chandrayaan-1 and will be ejected once it reaches 100 km orbit around Moon, to impact on the Moon. MIP carries three more instruments, namely, a high resolution mass spectrometer, an S-Band altimeter and a video camera. The MIP also carries with it a picture of the Indian flag, it's presence marking as only the fourth nation to place a flag on the Moon after Russia, United States and Japan.
• Among foreign payloads, The Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) from the ESA will map composition using low energy neutral atoms sputtered from the surface.