Ashutosh Singh Rawat
The Chandrayaan-1 has finally soared into the skies and with this, India’s dream to be a step closer to moon has been accomplished. After the launch of Chandrayaan on Wednesday 22 October, 2008 India has now finally joined the elite club of moon probing countries. It came as a result of years of hard work which is not easy to accumulate the efforts in words that have been put into the whole mission. India is lacking behind other Moon Probing nations in knowledge related to planetary exploration. We do not know much about the planets and planetary system and how they were actually formed but we need to know all that to succeed. And Chandrayaan-1 is the first step to go further in this direction. This space mission is just a right thing to persuade the young blood of India and offer them something new and exciting to think of.
India started off with their space mission way back in 1963 and over a period of time it has made consistent and remarkable developments in the space field. India now develops its own launch vehicles and satellites and is virtually not dependent on the foreign agencies. India is precisely benefited by the high level of indigenization of systems and the availability of technical manpower at a very low cost. With the world nations exploring great opportunities to have habitation on Moon, this space mission has come just at a right time. Some initiatives have already been taken by NASA in this regard. And with Chandrayaan-1 India may be in a position to play an important role in conceptualizing the new human habitat.
Chandrayaan-1 is an unmanned exploration mission to the moon by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Chandrayaan is being injected into the space with the help of modified version of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV- C11) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SHAR) in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
Once the Indian moon rover reaches its lunar transfer orbit, it will just take around 5.5 days weeks to reach its final orbit destination around the moon. The satellite weighs around 1,304 kilograms (590 kg initial orbit mass and a 504 kg of dry mass). It is carrying high resolution remote sensing equipment for excellent visible, near infrared, hard and soft X-ray frequencies. The expected lifetime of Chandrayaan is calculated at 2 years and over this period of time it will review the lunar surface and construct a map of its chemical characteristics and the three-dimensional topography. The overall estimated cost of the Chandrayaan-1 mission is considered to be Rs. 3.86 billion that is around 80 million US dollars.
So it is interesting to know what all are the things that would be covered up during the Chandrayaan-1 mission to the moon. Chandrayaan-1 would help in gaining an insight to ISRO in the following areas-
• It would help in taking out high resolution mineralogical and chemical images of permanently shadowed regions of South and North Pole.
• To search and find out surfaces and sub-surfaces water-ice on the Moon, and that especially at lunar poles.
• To provide a map of height variations in the lunar surfaces that are featured along side the satellite track.
• It would help in providing chemical stratigraphy of lunar crust with the help of remote sensing of central uplands present in large lunar craters.
• Facilitate in stereographic coverage with 5 meter resolution of the Moon’s surface.
• To identify chemical end members of lunar high and rocks.
• To gain more information in subject matters like origin and evolution of Moon.
So finally, one can say “It is not a journey to an end; it’s just a start of new era of India’s success.”
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