Chandrayaan-1, India’s First Mission to Moon

Chandrayaan-1, India’s First Mission to Moon

Author: Moon Ch. Deka

It was a tremendous achievement in Indian space research programme soon after historic launching of Chndrayaan-1 to the orbit of the Moon. Once again India has proved that India is one of the advanced countries as concern to the space borne technology in the world. This achievement came to harness the goal of success due to some important relevant India’s space organizations which are mainly of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Space Application Centre (SAC), National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), and Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), National Physical laboratory (NPL), Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) etc. India is also very advanced in techniques of space borne application due to availability and dissemination of good digital satellite data. There are good resolution of satellite data derived from sensors like LISS-III, LISS IV and Panchromatic camera in the visible and Near Infra Red band of EMR spectrum which are the important tools as concern to the management and exploration of natural resources in the earth. The satellite data has been derived from many Remote Sensing & Cartographic Satellites (IRS Series) and Communication & Metrological Satellites (INSAT Series). Being a one of the world’s advanced research centre the ISRO have had ambitious moon mission plan before long time ago but it had implemented since 2003. The mass of Chandrayaan-1 was 1380 kg at the Launching pad and it was projected successfully by indigenous Polar Satellite Launce Vehicle (PSLV-11) at 6-21 am on 22nd Oct’08 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre located Sriharikota of Andhrapradesh which is about 100 km north of Chennai. The mass of Chandrayaan –1 was 1050 Kg at Geostationary Trajectory Orbit (GTO) located at 36,000 km from the earth surface. The Chandrayaan-1 has finally reached after performing 20 days of journey to its intended final circular lunar orbit at a height of 100 km above the lunar surface besides landing of Moon Impact of Probe (MIP) with the Indian tri color Flag. After the Chandrayaan-1 Mission , ISRO’s have another project of Chandrayaan -2 in 2011 and planning for putting two men mission into the space with an estimated cost of 120 billion in 2015 besides future planning of artificial satellites to the Mars in 2020 which would be the another history to join the nations of super space club . The distance of the Moon is located at an average altitude of 384,400 km from the Earth. The diameter of Moon is about 3476 km along with mass of 7.35e22 kg (7.35 × 10 22 kg. In fact, Moon mission progamme had been started since 1959. The fist mission of Soviet spacecraft Luna2 had successfully visited the Moon in 1959. The first man Neil Armstrong had landed was on July 20, 1969 and the last was in December 1972 by the Apollo Mission. The rock samples were also collected by robotic missions and Moon’s mapping had also been done with the help of digital images sent by Sensors aboard on spacecraft. It has been found by the astrophysicist and geologist that the most rocks on the surface of the Moon seem to be between 3 to 4.6 billion years old that is almost equivalent the age of hard Precambrian rocks of the Earth. It is known that Moon has no geological activities due to absence of any physical and chemical behaviour including atmosphere and rains. Yet there are still to derive the detail data of Lunar Surfaces and its interior composition as there are continuously developing of updated sensors systems like latest Charged Couple Device of Thematic Mapper for evaluation of high resolution digital pan images and mini Synthetic aperture Radar for gathering information on scattering of lunar surfaces and presence of thickness of ice pool including mineralogical exploration with the help of Radar Images which was not developed in earlier during the 1970 to 1990. Moreover, the advanced countries in space technology including India do not want to loose to take advantages for future planning of extraction of energy and to set up space borne platform on nearest extraterrestrial body for acceleration of ongoing space research programmes. The Helium (3He) is an important isotope which is vital reactants of second generation of fuel to produce nuclear energy. This isotope is abundant in the Moon’s surface as well as to its interior which is an important reactant to meet the energy requirement. Around 25 tones of He reactants is equivalent to produce energy required by USA in one year. The another important point is that as the Chandrayaan –I reached the Moon’s orbit which reveals India’s dreams of future space mission will not be farthest as because of PSLV-11 crossed the distance of 340,000 kms from the earth. These are vital reasons for which the Moon Mission is very demandable. Though this Chandrayaan-I Mission was expected before few years ago yet the time may be a strategically accurate period due to carrying latest payloads could be more demandable and a have maximum probability for tie up with the other developing courtiers in terms of transfer of technology and to guide them a space research oriented programme. All total 11 numbers of 55 KG payloads or scientific instruments have been calibrated on the Moon Mission Chandrayaan-1. Out of it 6 payloads developed by ISRO which are CCD Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) , CCD Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI), Ranging Instrument (LLRI), High Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX), Moon Impact Probe (MIP) , Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) and two payloads developed by ESA (European Space Agency) which are of Near-IR Spectrometer (SIR-2), Sub Kev Atom reflecting Analyzer (SARA), and one payload Radiation Dose Monitor Experiment (RADOM ) developed by Bulgarian Science Academy and two payloads namely Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR) and Moon Mineralogy Mapped (M3). From the onboard payloads developed by the respective nations it can be assumed their destination to gather more information in the different field of subjects from this earth’s satellite. As a first step to Mission Moon the ISRO, India have shown keen interested to derive the scientific data in all the aspects like origin of Moon, thematic terrain evaluation derive from the high resolution of PAN images ( Digital data from Panchromatic Camera), mapping of mineralogical exploration, to generate an improved model for the lunar gravity field, to get technological required data for future soft landing missions to moon by orbiting in a close range and finally to carry out high quality X-ray spectroscopic mapping of the Moon. Based on boarding indigenous instruments it is an initial complete packages of Moon Mission series of Chandrayaan –I which would definitely help to India’s target for Manned Moon Mission in 2020. Though Apollo and Lunar unmanned missions had sent earlier by Nations like USA, European Space Agency, Russia, Japan and China yet the recent unmanned Chandrayaan –1 has created a remarkable history in the world’s space technological programmes. This has been successful because of renowned Indian Space Scientist and Engineers for their excellent efforts to develop space technology indigenously on associated with IRS and INSAT series of satellites apart from tremendous development of Polar Satellite Launched Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). All total 50 numbers of artificial satellites have been launched to the earth’s orbit within the spans of 35 years. The history will begins as Chandrayaan –I revolves around the Moon once every orbital period of 117 minutes at an altitude of 100 X100 km lunar polar orbit with an mass of 523 kg to become a history of another chapter of space technology along with the registering the sixth Indian nation that have sent unmanned spacecraft to the Moon. The calibrated payloads of different Nations like National Aeronautics Space Agency of USA (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) and Bulgarian science Academy are a matter of Indian’s pride and symbol of friendly relation apart from scientific cooperation to harness the goal of success in the space borne technology. It may be noted that SIR-2 and SARA payloads of ESA would carry out the data on the field of Chemical and Magnetic mapping of Moon for its history of origin and composition. The RADOM payloads are very interesting to have gathered the monitoring of radioactive elements like Helium (He), Rubidium (Rb) and Thorium (Th). On the other hand, SAR payloads of the NASA of USA is interested to detect water ice in the permanently shadowed regions on the Lunar poles up to a few meters depth along with M3 payload for mapping of lunar mineral resources at high spatial and spectral resolution to support planning for future, targeted missions. The transmission of data in the different digital format from Payloads of Chandrayaan’s -I to the ground station equipped with remotely controlled devices situated near the Bangalore would be the very fruitful as because Chandrayaan –I orbits has been fixed at a 100 km from the Lunar surfaces . In general remote sensing satellites are placed in a polar orbit at a distance from 700 kms to 900 kms from the surface of the earth. This Chandrayaan –I ‘S will have to be achieved 100 X 100 km lunar polar orbit finally where it may have been interesting to interpretation the digital images and transmission of radiation energy. Apart from CCD hyper spectral imager, pan camera there are other spectrometers devices to know the spectral distribution of EMR from the lunar surface in the C1XS (X Ray Spectrometer) would use X-ray fluorescence technique (1.0-10 keV) for measuring abundance of elements like Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Fe, Ti distributed over the surface of the Moon to know the origin of the earth’s satellite. On the other hand the SIR-2(Infrared) Spectrometer will measure the soil texture, structure, moisture content and vegetation to know the landscape of the lunar surface in detail. Moreover NASA and ESA‘s bid for payloads on Chandrayaan-I has revealed to carry out the many optimistic solution and clues from the earth’s satellites for the next generation of exploration of Lunar. This is true that space science and its advance research are necessary to become a powerful nation in the world. The space technology helps to evaluate natural resource mappings in the earth and other planets. Moreover, the country gets more benefited by using updated space technology in different fields like natural resource mapping and any other country planning including Military mapping, antiterrorism plan etc. etc. That is why space research and its updated evaluation is a matter of country’s prestige. The USA is assumed as a superior only because of their advanced space research power and its application for their powerful constellation of 24 numbers of global positioning satellites where the entire world is dependent on their spatial positioning systems. Of course GLONASS positioning of Russia is also going on which India could be a partner in the coming days. It may be indicated that the important space research organization in the world are National Aeronautics Space Agency of USA, Russia’s Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), remote Sensing Technology Centre (RESTEC), Institute of Space and Astronautically Science (ISAS) of Japan , China National Space Administration and agency, European Space Agency and finally Indian Space Research Organization. China successfully put two manned spacecraft into orbit in 2003 and 2005, respectively, becoming the third country to send an astronaut into space after the United States and the Soviet Union. Hope India‘s plan to put two men in space in the 2015 may have come out successfully to make a another remarkable history as a fourth nations to project astronauts into space.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/science-articles/chandrayaan1-indias-first-mission-to-moon-628764.html

About the Author:
Writer profession is a Geologist and is expertised in RS & GIS technology and have interested to do work in Municipal GIS including various urban planning.