MOON IMPACT PROBE INSERTION-CHANDRAYAAN

[edit] Injection of MIP on lunar surface

The Moon Impact Probe took this close-up picture of the moon's surface during its descent.

The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) crash-landed on the lunar surface on 14 November 2008, 15:01 UTC (20:31 Indian Standard Time (IST)) near Shackleton Crater at the south pole.The MIP was one of eleven scientific instruments (payloads) onboard Chandrayaan-1.

The MIP separated from Chandrayaan at 100 km from lunar surface and began its nosedive at 14:36 UTC (20:06 IST) going into a free fall for thirty minutes.As it fell, it kept sending information back to the mother satellite which, in turn, beamed the information back to earth. The altimeter then also began recording measurements to prepare for a rover to land on the lunar surface during a second moon mission planned for 2012. When the MIP was closer to the surface, rockets were fired to slow down its speed and to soften impact

Following the successful deployment of MIP, the other scientific instruments will be turned on one-by-one starting the next phase of the two-year mission.

LUNAR ORBIT INSERTION-CHANDRAYAAN MISSION PROFILE

Chandrayaan-1 successfully completed the lunar orbit insertion operation on 8th Nov 2008 at 16:51 IST. This manoeuvre involved firing of the liquid engine for 817 seconds (about thirteen and half minutes) when the spacecraft passed within 500 km from the moon. The satellite was placed in an elliptical orbit that passed over the polar regions of the moon, with 7502 km aposelene (point farthest away from the moon) and 504 km periselene (nearest to the moon). The orbital period was estimated to be around 11 hours. With the successful completion of this operation, India became the fifth nation to put a vehicle in lunar orbit.

First orbit reduction

First Lunar Orbit Reduction Manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 was carried out successfully on 9 November 2008 at 20:03 IST. During this, the engine of the spacecraft was fired for about 57 seconds. This reduced the periselene from 504 km to 200 km while aposelene remained unchanged at 7,502 km. In this elliptical orbit, Chandrayaan-1 took about ten and a half hours to circle the moon once.

Second orbit reduction

This manoeuvre, which resulted in steep decrease in Chandrayaan-1’s aposelene from 7,502 km to 255 km and its periselene from 200 km to 187 km, was carried out on 10 November 2008 at 21:58 IST. During this manoeuvre, the engine was fired for about 866 seconds (about fourteen and half minutes). Chandrayaan-1 took two hours and 16 minutes to go round the Moon once in this orbit.

Third orbit reduction

Third Lunar Orbit Reduction was carried out by firing the on board engine for 31 seconds on 11 November 2008 at 18:30 IST. This reduced the periselene from 187 km to 101 km, while the aposelene remained constant at 255 km. In this orbit Chandrayaan-1 took two hours and 9 minutes to go round the Moon once

Final orbit

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was successfully placed into a mission specific lunar polar orbit of 100 km above the lunar surface on 12 November 2008.In the final orbit reduction manoeuvre, Chandrayaan-1’s aposelene was reduced from 255 km to 100 km while the periselene was reduced from 101 km to 100 km.In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about two hours to go round the moon once. Two of the 11 payloads – the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and the Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) – have already been successfully switched on. The TMC has successfully taken pictures of both the Earth and the moon.

CHANDRAYAAN-1-MISSION ISRO TEAM

The scientists considered instrumental to the success of the Chandrayaan-1 project are:

• G. Madhavan Nair – Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation
• Dr.T. K. Alex – Director, ISAC (ISRO Satellite Centre)
• Mylswamy Annadurai– Project Director, Chandrayan-1
• S. K. Shivkumar – Director - Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network.
• Mr.M.Pitchaimani – Operations Director, Chandrayan-1
• Mr.Leo Jackson John – Spacecraft Operations Manager, Chandrayan-1
• Dr.K.Radhakrishnan – Director, VSSC
• George Koshi –Mission Director,PSLV-C11
• Srinivasa Hegde – Mission Director,Chandrayaan-1
• M C Dattan – Director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre,Sriharikota
• Prof.J N Goswami – Director of Physical Research Laboratory,Ahemadabad and Principal Scientific Investigator of Chandrayaan-1

CHANDRAYAAN-SPECIFICATION

Specifications

Mass

1380 kg at launch, 675 kg at lunar orbit,and 523 kg after releasing the impactor.

Dimensions

Cuboid in shape of approximately 1.5 m

Communications

X band, 0.7 m diameter parabolic antenna for payload data transmission. The Telemetry, Tracking & Command (TTC) communication operates in S band frequency.

Power

The spacecraft is mainly powered by its solar array, which includes one solar panel covering a total area of 2.15 x 1.8 m generating 700 W of power, which is stored in a 36 A·h lithium-ion battery.The spacecraft uses a bipropellant integrated propulsion system to reach lunar orbit as well as orbit and altitude maintenance while orbiting the Moon.

PLACING INDIAN FLAG ON LUNAR SURFACE

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.

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%."