CHANDRAYAAN-1 - A SPACE ODYSSEY IN THE MAKING

"One small step for man, A giant leap for mankind" - Neil Armstrong

Indian space research has toiled hard all these years and now here it is ready to take the small step to scale the moon for which the curtain raiser is the lunar project "CHANDRAYAAN-1".

Chandrayaan-1 is India's first ever mission to moon for high resolution remote sensing of lunar surfaces in various possible regions of light spectrum.It has been proposed to carry a 10 kg payload weight and 10 W power and space agencies of various nations like NASA,ESA,Bulgaria,Sweden,Germany,France,etc. have sent their scientific payloads for inclusion in Chandrayaan-1.The launch will be in the month of February 2008.

This project was announced by then Prime minister Mr.Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Independence Day of 2003.This project will be shortly followed by various other ambitious projects like Mars Exploration,Manned mission to moon,Finding possibilities of life in other planets,etc.

This mission aims at placing a 525kg satellite in a 100 km polar orbit over the moon.This satellite will be lauched by India's indigenous Satellite launch vehile, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV).First the space vehicle will be placed in the Geo Synchronous Transfer Orbit and later tranferred to the proposed lunar orbit based on the in-built propulsion systems.This will be operational for 2 years providing enthralling information about our natural satellite,Moon.

The main objectives are:

1.To find out the chemical and mineral composition of North and south regions of moon which are permanently shadowed.

2.To evaluate the origin and evolution of moon.

3.To searh for Water ice on lunar surfaces especially at the poles.

4.To deduce the chemical composition of lunar rocks.

5.To map height variations in lunar surfaces.

THE MODEL:

The following are the proposed scientific payloads for this project:

1.Terrain Mapping stereo Camera(TMC)

2.Hyper Spectral Imager(HySI)

3.Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument(LLRI)

4.Low Energy and High Energy X-Ray Spectrometer(LEX and HEX)

5.Solar X-Ray Monitor(SXM)

Earlier the project was developed as an orbiting mission but now along with it, a small impact probe has been added to try out a hard landing on moon surface on the request of our esteemed President,Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam.

By this time ,the team faced a problem.When solar eclipse occurs, earth will come between sun and moon (also,b\w sun & the spacecraft launched),so the probe may not get its power from sun and it needs a back up which will increase the weight of spacecraft.But since the next full solar eclipse is on December 2010,it has been decide to launch Chadrayaan-1 by February 2008 so that the project will be completed by February 2010,well ahead of the eclipse.

There are some more problems which are being efficiently addressed by our highly skilled scientists.We can be sure that the launch take place at the proposed date and give India, a new dimension in the field of space research.

I am happy that i have provided a bit of information on a project which is going to make Indians hold their heads high in the world arena.

Let us all join our hands in wishing the CHANDRAYAAN-1 team of ISRO, a grand success of their endeavour.