The Moon holds a special place in India’s cultural ethos, literature, music, folklore, scriptures and mythology. This is also true for other advanced Asian giants-China and Japan. India would be joining the select club of nations like USA, Russia, Japan which have explored Earth’s only and much adored satellite. About origin of Moon there are new theories but detail evidence is still lacking. There is some hope that Moon would be habitable if the ice in the deep craters could be utilized to generate Oxygen.

There is now certainty that NASA would set up a lunar base. Even then there is still poor knowledge about the moon among the Indians. NASA’s World Wind Moon software is easily installable and would give every Indian a glimpse of Moon’s cartography in three dimensions. Credit goes to the visionary ex-PM Shri Atal Bihari Bajpayee who encouraged the ISRO scientists to think and dream big. Actually it is a relatively cheaper mission with just Rs 400 crore.

The name Chandrayana-1 could have also been inspired by his poetic spirit. In Sanskrit there are many synonyms for the Moon. But the common one is “Chandra”. And “Yana” means-a vehicle. The Chandrayana orbiting satellite will weigh 1304 kg and carry high resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, soft and hard X-ray frequencies. The mission would continue for more than two-years. It would survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. The Polar regions would be explored for water ice. Chandrayana-1 mission objectives are “to carry out high resolution mapping of topographic features in 3D, distribution of various minerals and elemental chemical species including radioactive nuclides covering the entire lunar surface using a set of remote sensing payloads. The new set of data would help in unravelling mysteries about the origin and evolution of solar system in general and that of the moon in particular.”

Besides one of the goal of the mission is “to realize harnessing the science payloads, lunar craft and the launch vehicle with suitable ground support system including DSN station, integration and testing, launching and achieving lunar orbit of ~100 km, in-orbit operation of experiments, communication/telecommand, telemetry data reception, quick look data and archival for scientific utilization by identified group of scientists”.

Once inserted in a lunar orbit what Chandrayana -1 would do? It would obtain high resolution mineralogical and chemical images of permanently shadowed north and south polar regions. It would search for surface or sub-surface water-ice on the moon, specially at lunar pole. It would identify chemical end members of lunar high land rocks. It would study the chemical stratigraphy of lunar crust by remote sensing of central upland of large lunar craters, South Pole Aitken Region (SPAR) etc, where interior material may be expected. It would map the height variation of the lunar surface features along the satellite track. It would observe X-ray spectrum greater than 10 keV. And most important would be its stereographic coverage of the moon’s surface with 5 m resolution. This would provide new insights in understanding the moon’s origin and evolution. To perform all these operations the satellite would carry a scientific payload of 90 kg. This contains six Indian instruments and six foreign instruments. The Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) has 5 meter resolution and a 40 km swath in the panchromatic band. It would produce a high-resolution map of the Moon. The Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI) will perform mineralogical mapping in the 400-900 nm band with a spectral resolution of 15 nm and a spatial resolution of 80 m. The Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) will determine the surface topography. Moon does not have any atmosphere so it is continuously bombarded by Solar flux.To detect solar flux in the 1–10 keV range the satellite is equipped with X-ray fluorescence spectrometer C1XS and a Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM). C1XS will be also used to map the abundance of Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, and Fe at the surface and the XSM will monitor the solar flux. Lunar radioactivity would be measure by A High Energy X-ray/gamma ray spectrometer (HEX). ISRO has developed a Moon Impact probe(MIP) which is a small satellite to impact on the moon. MIP carries three more instruments namely, a high resolution mass spectrometer, an S-Band altimeter and a video camera.

International participants have included payloads like the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) from ESA which will map composition using low energy neutral atoms sputtered from the surface. Brown University and JPL have supplied the Moon Minerology Mapper. Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Polish Academy of Science and University of Bergen have sent a near infrared spectrometer (SIR-2) which will also map the mineral composition using an infrared grating spectrometer.

A small east European nation Bulgraia has sent Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM-7) to map the radiation environment around the moon. If Chandrayana -1 succeeds then Chandrayana-2 would follow in 2010 or 2011. It would carry a land rover. The success or failure of Chandrayana-1 does not depend on any auspicious time but a number of highly complex technological factors related to orbital maneuvers. The most complex would be lunar insertion manoeuvres.

But nothing is now impossible for India which developed its’ own supercomputers, hydrogen bomb and cryogenic engines. We must have strong faith in ISRO community and wish them success in 2008 to realize our dreams of making India a space superpower of this century. Watch out for the countdown this year.

source: google news

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