Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman G Madhavan Nair said on Thursday that India would launch its second lunar mission, Chandrayaan-II, in 2012 and a small robot would be dropped on the moon.
"Chandrayaan-II will be launched by 2012. We will have a lander that will drop a small robot on the moon, which will pick samples, analyze data and send the data back," Nair told media on the sidelines of a Space Technology seminar here.
Already the project has been formulated for Chandrayaan-II. Talking about Chandrayaan-I, Madhavan Nair said the Moon Impact Probe would land on the lunar surface on Friday evening.
He said already 95 per cent of the mission had been completed and the total success of the mission would be known only after the remaining work was completed.
Regarding the 'solar mission' called Aditya, Nair said a satellite was intended to study solar emissions and it would be launched within two years. ISRO would also go ahead with the study of sending a spacecraft to Mars.
Showing posts with label Destination Moon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Destination Moon. Show all posts
Friday, November 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.
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