The Indian moon mission is not just about science; it is also about India's coming out party on the world stage having sealed the nuclear deal with the United States.
In attempting to place the Indian flag on the moon's surface, if successful, it would make India just the fourth country in the world to have ever done so after Russia, America and Japan.
The flag will fly all the 4,00,000 kilometers to the moon on Chandrayaan-1 and on command from Indian space scientists, it will hurtle down to the moon's surface.
Called the Moon Impact Probe, this 35 kilogram computer monitor sized instrument was included on Chandryaan-1 at the behest of former President APJ Abdul Kalam.
Kalam felt that India's tricolor should be firmly placed on the moon sooner than later so that whenever the lunar resources are ever shared by the world community, India should get its rightful share and not be left out.
This will be the very first task that Chandrayaan-1 will perform when it reaches its designated 100 kilometer circular orbit around the moon.
And to execute it successfully, the space scientists have designed a proper course of action.
Once the space shuttle Chandrayaan-1 reaches the lunar orbit it will be reoriented for the special task.
Then, a small square carton sized instrument, which was carried piggyback on the Indian satellite, will be released on command.
With the mother craft (Chandrayaan-1) keeping a watchful eye, the small probe, powered with its own rockets, will hurtle down 100 kilometers to strike the lunar surface at a designated spot -- a challenging task indeed.
On its way down it will take images of the moon, analyze the moon's atmosphere and when it strikes the moon's surface at high speed it will also instantaneously analyze the moon's soil and transmit its data back to the mother craft that will be closely listening to its calls.
Most importantly, this probe would have placed India's tricolor on the moon surface for howsoever short-lived a moment may be before the instruments gets shattered on hard impact, heralding India's arrival on the moon!
The only other countries to have attempted such a feat are Russia, America and Japan.
The last time such a deliberate attempt to successfully hard land robots on the moon surface done was more than three decades ago when Russia placed instruments as part of its Luna 24 mission in 1976.
Since then no country has tried this at all and India attempts this challenging task on its maiden mission, making it a stride ahead of its regional rival China.
Commenting on the mission, Dr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO, said, "We have the Indian flag built in it, we are going to drop the Indian flag on the moon surface when the mission is getting completed."
To take a look at this very unique experiment, NDTV went up close to the satellite; even climbed up very near the Chandrayaan-1 and checked out the small box that carries with it the dreams of a billion plus Indians.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
CHANDRAYAAN REACHED 100 KM FORM LUNAR SURFACE
Matt_dk writes "Today, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has successfully reached its intended operational orbit at a height of about 100 km from the lunar surface. This followed a series of three orbit reduction manoeuvres conducted during the past three days by repeatedly firing the spacecraft's 440 Newton Liquid Engine. The next major event of Chandrayaan-1 mission planned in the coming days is the release of Moon Impact Probe (MIP) from the spacecraft and its eventual hitting of the moon's surface."
INDIAN FLAG ON MOON
NEW DELHI: Two days before the launch of India's first lunar orbiter, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G. Madhavan Nair
said on Monday that India will plant its flag on the moon to help establish its presence on the earth's only natural satellite.
India will drop its flag on the moon to establish its presence, Nair said in an interview. This will make India the fourth country after the US, Russia, and Japan to have its flag on the moon.
Asked for the geopolitical reason behind the planting of the flag, Nair said: "Today, as per the international charter, the moon belongs to the global community. Nobody can make special claim on the surface. But in due course, we don't know how things will change. But our presence will be established through this mission."
Nair also reiterated in the interview that ISRO planned to put a man in space by 2015. "If certain finer observation are to be made, online decisions have to be made, the presence of man becomes important," he said.
"The man behind the instrument. And also the reaction time for any decision will be a fraction of a second, whereas you know it takes almost eight seconds for the data to come from the moon to the earth and then again sent back and so on, and here also somebody has to analyse....so ultimately if you want to do a perfect experiment, man behind the instrument is a must."
Nair said it would cost around Rs.100 billion to put a man in space. However, he added, "in the Indian context we are committed to taking the space technology for grass root applications. We have done that and we will continue to do so. So nearly 80 percent of the budget is going to be spent on programmes which are relevant to the common man."
The lunar orbiter mission Chandrayaan that will be launched Wednesday will look for water on the moon, Nair confirmed. "If you are thinking of establishing lunar colony, water is essential element for that and if from it you can generate oxygen, and also if you can decompose and generate into fuel which is required for interplanetary travel, so the presence of water is a very-very important element for further exploration."
Nair also confirmed that the mission would look for Helium-3, one of the fuels for nuclear fusion. "Even one tonne of that can sustain the entire country's energy for one year," he pointed out. Reiterating that there was Helium-3 on the moon, he added: "Is it in abundant quantity, whether we can exploit, these are question marks."
The ISRO chief said that after the moon, the organisation had its sights set on Mars. "The GSLV can take a nearly 500 kg spacecraft to Mars. So if there are good ideas about experimental exploration of that system we can have the Mars mission and in about 3-4 years."
"If we want to maintain our leadership naturally we have to have the scientific goals which is set ahead so that we can be really either at par or ahead of the others in some of the fields. So this is a really challenging task. We believe that India, such a big nation, huge resources, both natural and human resource... we should be in leadership position as far as our space technology is concerned."
Asked if the space programme was cost effective, Nair said that for every rupee spent, ISRO gave back Rs.1.50 to the Indian society. "That is the first part of it. The second part is, the human resource and the technology we create, that is not valued. That is tremendous."
Asked if India have a colony on the moon sometime, Nair said: "We cannot lag behind others in this race. We have to really catch up and we should have our own technology for the manned capsule.
"Of course initial thing would be around earth itself, then from there how to send a man to the moon etc has to be considered. And today with the economic growth what you are seeing in the country this is affordable.
"And a very small fraction of the national budget we spend on space technology. It is really worth it. In fact if you take the entire budget for the space programme it is like 0.2-0.3 (percent) of the national budget. So it is very small compared to...others are using even up to 2 or 3%."
India will drop its flag on the moon to establish its presence, Nair said in an interview. This will make India the fourth country after the US, Russia, and Japan to have its flag on the moon.
Asked for the geopolitical reason behind the planting of the flag, Nair said: "Today, as per the international charter, the moon belongs to the global community. Nobody can make special claim on the surface. But in due course, we don't know how things will change. But our presence will be established through this mission."
Nair also reiterated in the interview that ISRO planned to put a man in space by 2015. "If certain finer observation are to be made, online decisions have to be made, the presence of man becomes important," he said.
"The man behind the instrument. And also the reaction time for any decision will be a fraction of a second, whereas you know it takes almost eight seconds for the data to come from the moon to the earth and then again sent back and so on, and here also somebody has to analyse....so ultimately if you want to do a perfect experiment, man behind the instrument is a must."
Nair said it would cost around Rs.100 billion to put a man in space. However, he added, "in the Indian context we are committed to taking the space technology for grass root applications. We have done that and we will continue to do so. So nearly 80 percent of the budget is going to be spent on programmes which are relevant to the common man."
The lunar orbiter mission Chandrayaan that will be launched Wednesday will look for water on the moon, Nair confirmed. "If you are thinking of establishing lunar colony, water is essential element for that and if from it you can generate oxygen, and also if you can decompose and generate into fuel which is required for interplanetary travel, so the presence of water is a very-very important element for further exploration."
Nair also confirmed that the mission would look for Helium-3, one of the fuels for nuclear fusion. "Even one tonne of that can sustain the entire country's energy for one year," he pointed out. Reiterating that there was Helium-3 on the moon, he added: "Is it in abundant quantity, whether we can exploit, these are question marks."
The ISRO chief said that after the moon, the organisation had its sights set on Mars. "The GSLV can take a nearly 500 kg spacecraft to Mars. So if there are good ideas about experimental exploration of that system we can have the Mars mission and in about 3-4 years."
"If we want to maintain our leadership naturally we have to have the scientific goals which is set ahead so that we can be really either at par or ahead of the others in some of the fields. So this is a really challenging task. We believe that India, such a big nation, huge resources, both natural and human resource... we should be in leadership position as far as our space technology is concerned."
Asked if the space programme was cost effective, Nair said that for every rupee spent, ISRO gave back Rs.1.50 to the Indian society. "That is the first part of it. The second part is, the human resource and the technology we create, that is not valued. That is tremendous."
Asked if India have a colony on the moon sometime, Nair said: "We cannot lag behind others in this race. We have to really catch up and we should have our own technology for the manned capsule.
"Of course initial thing would be around earth itself, then from there how to send a man to the moon etc has to be considered. And today with the economic growth what you are seeing in the country this is affordable.
"And a very small fraction of the national budget we spend on space technology. It is really worth it. In fact if you take the entire budget for the space programme it is like 0.2-0.3 (percent) of the national budget. So it is very small compared to...others are using even up to 2 or 3%."
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