The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Russian Space Agency have joined hands to share critical equipments for the Indian Man Mission to the Moon.
India and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote joint activities in the field of human space flight programme during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week.
"Under the MoU, both countries will jointly build spacecraft for the Indian manned mission," said S Satish, spokesperson of ISRO.
As per the MoU, an Indian astronaut will embark on a mission to space in a Russian spacecraft within the next five years, ahead of ISRO's maiden human space flight scheduled for 2014 or 2015.
"We have well laid our plans and of course manned mission are in our plan and programme. May be manned mission for the government approval, comes immediately, around 2014 or 2015, will be the targeted launch date," added Satish.
Recently, ISRO achieved benchmark success when the Chandrayaan-1 (India's moon mission) was successfully launched on October 22, by PSLV-C11.
This success allowed India to join the elite lunar club which Russia, the USA, Japan, China and European Space Agency are already members.
India is also planning to launch the satellite 'Aditya' to study the sun by 2012 and it also hopes to send an astronaut into space by 2012.
Source; Agencies
Showing posts with label Chandrayaan-1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chandrayaan-1. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Chandrayaan-1 reaches final orbit
Destination Moon
It is yet another historic day in India’s space odyssey. Chandrayaan-1 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 during the past three days by repeatedly firing the spacecraft’s 440 Newton Liquid Engine.
As part of these manoeuvres, the engine was fired totally for about 16 minutes. As a result, the farthest point of Chandrayaan-1’s orbit (aposelene) from the moon’s surface was first reduced from 7,502 km to 255 km and finally to 100 km. The nearest point (periselene) was reduced from 200 km to 182 km and finally to 100 km.
With this, the carefully planned complex sequence of operations to carryChandrayaan-1 from Earth orbit to operational lunar orbit has been completed. During these operations, Chandrayaan-1’s liquid engine, built by Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Thiruvananthapuram, was fired ten times. In its current orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about 2 hours to go round the moon once.
From this orbit passing over the moon’s polar regions, it will conduct chemical, mineralogical and photogeological mapping with 11 instruments (payloads). Two of them — Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) — have already been successfully switched on. TMC has taken pictures of the Earth and the moon.
The next major event of the mission is the release of the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) and its landing on the moon’s surface.
It is yet another historic day in India’s space odyssey. Chandrayaan-1 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 during the past three days by repeatedly firing the spacecraft’s 440 Newton Liquid Engine.
As part of these manoeuvres, the engine was fired totally for about 16 minutes. As a result, the farthest point of Chandrayaan-1’s orbit (aposelene) from the moon’s surface was first reduced from 7,502 km to 255 km and finally to 100 km. The nearest point (periselene) was reduced from 200 km to 182 km and finally to 100 km.
With this, the carefully planned complex sequence of operations to carryChandrayaan-1 from Earth orbit to operational lunar orbit has been completed. During these operations, Chandrayaan-1’s liquid engine, built by Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Thiruvananthapuram, was fired ten times. In its current orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about 2 hours to go round the moon once.
From this orbit passing over the moon’s polar regions, it will conduct chemical, mineralogical and photogeological mapping with 11 instruments (payloads). Two of them — Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) — have already been successfully switched on. TMC has taken pictures of the Earth and the moon.
The next major event of the mission is the release of the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) and its landing on the moon’s surface.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Chandrayaan-1 inches closer to moon
The fourth orbit-raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 was carried out which took the lunar spacecraft closer to the moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation said.
During this operation at 0738 hours, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about three minutes, the Bangalore-headquartered space agency said in a statement.
"With this, Chandrayaan-1 entered into a more elliptical orbit whose apogee (farthest point to earth) lies at 2,67,000 km while the perigee (nearest point to earth) lies at 465 km. Thus, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft's present orbit extends more than half the way to the moon," ISRO said.
In this orbit, the spacecraft takes about six days to go round the earth once.
The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) here with support from Indian Deep Space Network antennas at Byalalu near Bangalore.
ISRO said all systems on board the spacecraft are performing normally.
One more orbit raising manoeuvre is scheduled to send the spacecraft to the vicinity of he moon at a distance of about 3,84,000 km from the earth, it said.
During this operation at 0738 hours, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about three minutes, the Bangalore-headquartered space agency said in a statement.
"With this, Chandrayaan-1 entered into a more elliptical orbit whose apogee (farthest point to earth) lies at 2,67,000 km while the perigee (nearest point to earth) lies at 465 km. Thus, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft's present orbit extends more than half the way to the moon," ISRO said.
In this orbit, the spacecraft takes about six days to go round the earth once.
The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) here with support from Indian Deep Space Network antennas at Byalalu near Bangalore.
ISRO said all systems on board the spacecraft are performing normally.
One more orbit raising manoeuvre is scheduled to send the spacecraft to the vicinity of he moon at a distance of about 3,84,000 km from the earth, it said.
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