By Khabrein.Info Correspondent,
New Delhi, Chandrayaan-1’s flawless launch has boosted India’s image in the world. There is no doubt about it.
Besides the feat also shows that India is fast catching up with China that began its ambitious space programmes long before India thought to begin one.
Everyone is all praise for the feat that India has achieved within a short time and with minimal resources. From Barack Obama to Ban Ki Moon everyone has realized that India has finally arrived.
It is a big achievement for a country that just over a decade ago was known more for snake charmers, abject poverty, backwardness and corruption.
But things have changed and certainly for better when it comes to economic prosperity and scientific advancements.
Now consistent impressive performance in the economic filed in the last decade has seen India’s graph going up in the international arena.
India is taken as an important member of the world fraternity and an economic powerhouse of the world that has potential to become a superpower.
Though India’s human rights performance has been dismal in the last decade with right wing Hindu chauvinists targeting two large minorities of the country, Christians and Muslims but it has not hindered India’s ascendance to the big league in the space.
For India, which began its space journey in a modest way in 1963 with the launch of a 9-kilo rocket from a research facility at the fishing hamlet of Thumba in Kerala, the Chandrayaan-1 marks a quantum leap. Indeed, India’s unmanned scientific mission to moon, which was approved almost four years ago, has moved further up India’s priority list in the wake of China’s successful manned mission of October 2003.
India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission is aimed at high-resolution remote sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared(NIR), low energy X-rays and high-energy X-ray regions. Specifically the objectives is to prepare a three-dimensional atlas (with a high spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10m) of both near and far side of the moon.
Its objective is also to conduct chemical and mineralogical mapping of the entire lunar surface for distribution of elements such as Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Calcium, Iron and Titanium with a spatial resolution of about 25 km and high atomic number elements such as Radon, Uranium & Thorium with a spatial resolution of about 20 km.
Chandrayaan carried as many as 11 payloads — five from India, three from the European Space Agency (ESA), one from the Bulgarian Space Agency (BSA) and two from NASA, making it a truly global initiative. The two-year mission will be invaluable as the Chandrayaan is programmed to orbit the Lunar surface and digitally map it. It will also send information on the traces of the composition of the lunar surface apart from looking for atomic minerals such as thorium and uranium. The probe is also equipped with high-resolution cameras which could help shed some light on the existence of water on the moon.
A modified (rather upgraded) PSLV launch vehicle was used to transport the probe to the lunar orbit. Due to the modifications, the PSLV C-11 had a lift-off weight of 316 tonnes, which is much higher than the “standard” 294-ton version. Additionally, the payload capacity too has been increased from 1600 kg to 1800 kg. The PSLV has been the most successful launch vehicle for ISRO till date. It also holds the record for sending as many as 10 satellites simultaneously during its last mission.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Chandrayaan-1 is almost ready to be put in final orbit
By Khabrein.Info Correspondent,
Bengaluru, Nov. 12: First moon mission of India, the unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 is almost ready to be put in final orbit. The premier space agency Indian Space Research Oorganization (ISRO) is going gaga over the fact that in its first attempt it has done what was unthinkable from a third world country like India.
In the meantime there are malicious efforts on the part of Chinese news websites and some members of elite space club to play down the importance of the feat achieved by India.
India has become the sixth country after US, Russia, China, France and Japan to have successfully send a spacecraft to orbit moon.
One website went to the extent of claiming that Indian space organization ISRO had lost track of Chandrayaan-1 and that the space craft had become uncontrollable.
It is another matter that later it retracted its claim and said that it may not track the spacecraft that has crossed the earth orbit.
On the other hand ISRO is going gaga over the successful repeated maneuvering of the Chandrayaan and its success in putting the spacecraft into moon orbit.
The first orbit reduction manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully completed, taking the spacecraft as near as 200 km to the moon, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).
As part of the manoeuvre which began at 8.09 pm on Sunday, the 440-newton liquid engine of the spacecraft was fired for about 57 seconds, a statement by the Isro said.
With this, the nearest point of Chandrayaan-1’s orbit (periselene) from the moon’s surface was reduced from 504 km to 200 km while the farthest point (aposelene) remained unchanged at 7,502 km, the statement said. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about 10-and-half hours to circle the moon once.
The lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 was successfully performed on Saturday, and the spacecraft entered the orbit around the moon with a periselene of 504 km and an aposelene of 7,502 kms.
The health as well as the orbit of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft is being closely monitored from the spacecraft control centre of Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) in Bengaluru with crucial support from the Indian Deep Space Network antennas at Byalalu. The spacecraft performance is normal.
Bengaluru, Nov. 12: First moon mission of India, the unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 is almost ready to be put in final orbit. The premier space agency Indian Space Research Oorganization (ISRO) is going gaga over the fact that in its first attempt it has done what was unthinkable from a third world country like India.
In the meantime there are malicious efforts on the part of Chinese news websites and some members of elite space club to play down the importance of the feat achieved by India.
India has become the sixth country after US, Russia, China, France and Japan to have successfully send a spacecraft to orbit moon.
One website went to the extent of claiming that Indian space organization ISRO had lost track of Chandrayaan-1 and that the space craft had become uncontrollable.
It is another matter that later it retracted its claim and said that it may not track the spacecraft that has crossed the earth orbit.
On the other hand ISRO is going gaga over the successful repeated maneuvering of the Chandrayaan and its success in putting the spacecraft into moon orbit.
The first orbit reduction manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully completed, taking the spacecraft as near as 200 km to the moon, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).
As part of the manoeuvre which began at 8.09 pm on Sunday, the 440-newton liquid engine of the spacecraft was fired for about 57 seconds, a statement by the Isro said.
With this, the nearest point of Chandrayaan-1’s orbit (periselene) from the moon’s surface was reduced from 504 km to 200 km while the farthest point (aposelene) remained unchanged at 7,502 km, the statement said. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about 10-and-half hours to circle the moon once.
The lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 was successfully performed on Saturday, and the spacecraft entered the orbit around the moon with a periselene of 504 km and an aposelene of 7,502 kms.
The health as well as the orbit of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft is being closely monitored from the spacecraft control centre of Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) in Bengaluru with crucial support from the Indian Deep Space Network antennas at Byalalu. The spacecraft performance is normal.
Chandrayaan1 has company of Japanese, Chinese probes in orbit
Bangalore, Nov 8, 2008: India's moon mission has achieved lunar orbit today with a mission design to gather extensive data on the lunar surface including mineral mapping and a 3-D topography map according to the mission profile.
The Chandrayaan-1 is the third probe now in orbit around the moon with the Japanese and Chinese probes gathering lunar science data.
Future lunar missions will be sent to the moon by an array of nations to gather data for future human landing and outpost missions.
This was the trickiest part of India’s moon mission. And the most difficult part of manoeuvring Chandrayaan-1 to the lunar orbit was successful. This was done around 5.30 pm today (Nov 8).
This is difficult part of the entire manoeuvring process as the Chandrayaan-1’s velocity has to be first reduced by reverse firing when it reaches about 500 km from the moon. If the velocity reduction does not happen at the right time at the right place then it will be lost for ever as it would neither be in an elliptical orbit around the earth nor a hyperbolic orbit around the moon.
Once it is captured by the moon, the orbit become a polar elliptical one around the moon.
The next few operations will be to reduce the orbital height in four stages. This is not very difficult.
This is the first time that an Indian built spacecraft has broken away from the Earth’s gravitational field and reached the moon. This historic event occurred following the firing of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s liquid engine at 16:51 IST for a duration of 817 seconds. The highly complex ‘lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre’ was performed from Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network at Bangalore.
Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu supported the crucial task of transmitting commands and continuously monitoring this vital event with two dish antennas, one measuring 18 m and the other 32 m.
Chandrayaan-1’s liquid engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an orbit around the moon. The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (periselene) lies at a distance of about 504 km from the moon’s surface while the farthest point (aposelene) lies at about 7502 km. Chandrayaan-1 takes about 11 hours to go round the moon once in this orbit.
The performance of all the systems onboard Chandrayaan-1 is normal. In the coming days, the height of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s orbit around the moon will be carefully reduced in steps to achieve a final polar orbit of about 100 km height from the moon’s surface. Following this, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the spacecraft will be released to hit the lunar surface. Later, the other scientific instruments will be turned ON sequentially leading to the normal phase of the mission.
It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was launched on October 22, 2008 by PSLV-C11 from India’s spaceport at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. As intended, PSLV placed the spacecraft in a highly oval shaped orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 255 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 22,860 km. In the past two weeks, the liquid engine of Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully fired five times at opportune moments to increase the apogee height, first to 37,900 km, then to 74,715 km, later to 164,600 km, after that to 267,000 km and finally to 380,000km, as planned. During this period, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), one of the eleven payloads (scientific instruments) of the spacecraft, was successfully operated twice to take the pictures, first of the Earth, and then moon.
With today’s successful manoeuvre, India becomes the fifth country to send a spacecraft to Moon. The other countries, which have sent spacecraft to Moon, are the United States, former Soviet Union, Japan and China. Besides, the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries, has also sent a spacecraft to moon.
The Chandrayaan-1 is the third probe now in orbit around the moon with the Japanese and Chinese probes gathering lunar science data.
Future lunar missions will be sent to the moon by an array of nations to gather data for future human landing and outpost missions.
This was the trickiest part of India’s moon mission. And the most difficult part of manoeuvring Chandrayaan-1 to the lunar orbit was successful. This was done around 5.30 pm today (Nov 8).
This is difficult part of the entire manoeuvring process as the Chandrayaan-1’s velocity has to be first reduced by reverse firing when it reaches about 500 km from the moon. If the velocity reduction does not happen at the right time at the right place then it will be lost for ever as it would neither be in an elliptical orbit around the earth nor a hyperbolic orbit around the moon.
Once it is captured by the moon, the orbit become a polar elliptical one around the moon.
The next few operations will be to reduce the orbital height in four stages. This is not very difficult.
This is the first time that an Indian built spacecraft has broken away from the Earth’s gravitational field and reached the moon. This historic event occurred following the firing of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s liquid engine at 16:51 IST for a duration of 817 seconds. The highly complex ‘lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre’ was performed from Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network at Bangalore.
Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu supported the crucial task of transmitting commands and continuously monitoring this vital event with two dish antennas, one measuring 18 m and the other 32 m.
Chandrayaan-1’s liquid engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an orbit around the moon. The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (periselene) lies at a distance of about 504 km from the moon’s surface while the farthest point (aposelene) lies at about 7502 km. Chandrayaan-1 takes about 11 hours to go round the moon once in this orbit.
The performance of all the systems onboard Chandrayaan-1 is normal. In the coming days, the height of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s orbit around the moon will be carefully reduced in steps to achieve a final polar orbit of about 100 km height from the moon’s surface. Following this, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the spacecraft will be released to hit the lunar surface. Later, the other scientific instruments will be turned ON sequentially leading to the normal phase of the mission.
It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was launched on October 22, 2008 by PSLV-C11 from India’s spaceport at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. As intended, PSLV placed the spacecraft in a highly oval shaped orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 255 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 22,860 km. In the past two weeks, the liquid engine of Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully fired five times at opportune moments to increase the apogee height, first to 37,900 km, then to 74,715 km, later to 164,600 km, after that to 267,000 km and finally to 380,000km, as planned. During this period, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), one of the eleven payloads (scientific instruments) of the spacecraft, was successfully operated twice to take the pictures, first of the Earth, and then moon.
With today’s successful manoeuvre, India becomes the fifth country to send a spacecraft to Moon. The other countries, which have sent spacecraft to Moon, are the United States, former Soviet Union, Japan and China. Besides, the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries, has also sent a spacecraft to moon.
Chandrayaan-1 Starts Observations Of The Moon
Chandrayaan-1 Starts Observations Of The Moon
ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2008) — The Indian Space Research Organisation’s lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 released a probe that impacted close to the lunar south pole on 14 November. Following this, the instruments on the spacecraft are being switched on to get the science observations started.
The Moon Impact Probe was dropped close to Shackleton crater, a place close to the south pole, where ice may exist in areas that are never illuminated by the Sun. It carried three instruments: a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The imaging system took pictures of the Moon as it approached the surface, the radar was used to determine the altitude, and the mass spectrometer was used to study the thin lunar atmosphere.
The probe was released from the spacecraft at 15:36 CET (20:06 Indian Standard Time), on 14 November and took 25 minutes to reach the surface. As it descended, the probe transmitted pictures to the orbiter that were later downloaded to Earth.
Read more:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081124131241.htm
ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2008) — The Indian Space Research Organisation’s lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 released a probe that impacted close to the lunar south pole on 14 November. Following this, the instruments on the spacecraft are being switched on to get the science observations started.
The Moon Impact Probe was dropped close to Shackleton crater, a place close to the south pole, where ice may exist in areas that are never illuminated by the Sun. It carried three instruments: a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The imaging system took pictures of the Moon as it approached the surface, the radar was used to determine the altitude, and the mass spectrometer was used to study the thin lunar atmosphere.
The probe was released from the spacecraft at 15:36 CET (20:06 Indian Standard Time), on 14 November and took 25 minutes to reach the surface. As it descended, the probe transmitted pictures to the orbiter that were later downloaded to Earth.
Read more:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081124131241.htm
British Probe to Provide Insight on Moonquakes
British Probe to Provide Insight on Moonquakes
By Dan Talpalariu, Science Editor
Lunar quakes were discovered during the Apollo missions, and found to be of several types, but the actual source for each of them has eluded scientists so far, given that our natural satellite has no record of tectonic activity. And if we are ever to have a stable base on the Moon's surface, one that can take into account the seismic motion, we definitely need more data in this respect. That is why the British plan a £100 million (about $150 million or €120 million) mission that will plant four seismic probes 6 feet (2 meters) deep in the lunar surface.
Backed up by NASA, UK's Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecommunications Experiment (MoonLITE) mission will follow approximately the same scenario as the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft launched just weeks ago by the Indian Space Research Organisation. The main probe orbiting the Moon will fire four suitcase-sized probes that will partly bury themselves in the lunar soil, providing seismic, chemical composition, temperature and maybe water presence data.
Currently, the sources attributed to lunar quakes are the Earth's gravitational pull, rock expansion under sunlight heat, or under-crust geological activity. "While the Earth has eroded away that first 1,000 million years of history, the Moon however still holds a record of how frequently we were being hit by meteorites and the extent to which we were having water and other molecules delivered by comets," shared Dr. Ian Crawford, from Birkbeck College's school of Earth sciences at the University of London, about the other goals of the mission, as cited by The Telegraph.
Read more:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/British-Probe-To-Provide-Insight-on-Moonquakes-98542.shtml
By Dan Talpalariu, Science Editor
Lunar quakes were discovered during the Apollo missions, and found to be of several types, but the actual source for each of them has eluded scientists so far, given that our natural satellite has no record of tectonic activity. And if we are ever to have a stable base on the Moon's surface, one that can take into account the seismic motion, we definitely need more data in this respect. That is why the British plan a £100 million (about $150 million or €120 million) mission that will plant four seismic probes 6 feet (2 meters) deep in the lunar surface.
Backed up by NASA, UK's Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecommunications Experiment (MoonLITE) mission will follow approximately the same scenario as the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft launched just weeks ago by the Indian Space Research Organisation. The main probe orbiting the Moon will fire four suitcase-sized probes that will partly bury themselves in the lunar soil, providing seismic, chemical composition, temperature and maybe water presence data.
Currently, the sources attributed to lunar quakes are the Earth's gravitational pull, rock expansion under sunlight heat, or under-crust geological activity. "While the Earth has eroded away that first 1,000 million years of history, the Moon however still holds a record of how frequently we were being hit by meteorites and the extent to which we were having water and other molecules delivered by comets," shared Dr. Ian Crawford, from Birkbeck College's school of Earth sciences at the University of London, about the other goals of the mission, as cited by The Telegraph.
Read more:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/British-Probe-To-Provide-Insight-on-Moonquakes-98542.shtml
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