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.
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