India launches 'Chandrayan' - Impact probe lands on moon

[app_engine]

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=44000

PM's congratulatory message to the Chandrayan team.

[wrap07]

was viewing the launch highligths.
A Historic moment for our country.
Successful Moon mission. :clap:
These scientists who toil hard day in and out to achieve such results deserve the credit :thumbsup:

[Arthi]

well done INDIA :D
First successfull satellite to Moon :clap:

[Arthi]

When the Moon Mission had a major scare

A "small" fuel spill mishap when the Polar rocket with the Chandrayaan-I spacecraft atop was being fuelled created a near "scare" during the final countdown for the launch of India's maiden unmanned moon mission, ISRO Chief Madhavan Nair said.

This was revealed by Nair who earlier in the day spoke of how space scientists at the Sriharikota spaceport faced an "ordeal" after rains pounded the area and surrounding parts for nearly five days.

"Yesterday, we had a small mishap during filling operation when some of the fuel spilled over from one of the courses of the ground system and this created almost a scare," Nair said.

The ISRO chief also said launch personnel had to clear the "pad" and then carry out repairs before proceeding with the blast-off preparations.

"We had to take a tough decision as to how much of fuel had to be loaded, how much as to be unloaded and number of operations to be carried out simultaneously which we have never done earlier," he said.

"We lost 10 hours in the countdown yesterday due to inclement weather and almost lost the hope of making the launch. But working against all odds ISRO team has won the game," Nair said. North-East monsoon usually peaks over the eastern coast around this time of the year.

"It was an ordeal and never before we had such horrible weather just ahead of the launch date," he added


Courtesy: Rediffmail

[Arthi]

Have a look at our chandrayaan :D

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/18sd1.htm

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/21sld3.htm

[crazy]

wow :clap:

[a.singam]

India is following other nations. Long she has taken, far she will go! :cool2:

[Badri]

I have a question. How is this going to help India and Indians?

It has been done at an expense of Rs386 crore

I am not asking with skepticism, just curious. What is the ROI?

[leosimha]

I have a question. How is this going to help India and Indians?

It has been done at an expense of Rs386 crore

I am not asking with skepticism, just curious. What is the ROI?

Good question indeed.

Well, India is the 6th nation to do so. It will probe the Moon for various details. India is scientifically brilliant.

We Indians can take pride in it. :) :D

[crajkumar_be]

I have a question. How is this going to help India and Indians?

It has been done at an expense of Rs386 crore

I am not asking with skepticism, just curious. What is the ROI?
I have the same question....

[Vivasaayi]

scientists :clap:

well,what are we going to achieve by xploring moon? :roll:


p.s : recent articles have detailed abt thousands of fisherman being not allowed to fish for 10 to 20 days whenever a satellite has been launched and the fisherman were not given their due compensation.

they struggle to make their both ends meet at this period it seems. :?

[P_R]

I have a question. How is this going to help India and Indians?

It has been done at an expense of Rs386 crore

I am not asking with skepticism, just curious. What is the ROI?

Intellectual advancement.

Every time something the common eye views as lavish is done, there is a general notion that it has been done at the expense of famished toiling millions. (don't mind me putting words in your mouth Badri !)

What is 386 crore ?
It includes - I assume - salaries paid to the team of the whole team that worked on it. Professors being consulted , Scientists who worked on it, Engineers who created it, shop floor workers who created this, not to mention possible tea shop near ISRO who supplies intellect-fuel.

Sizeable would also go investments in equipment, software and hardware that would have one-time use.

I don't think everything can be judged immediate utility. I launched this now, I learnt about it so ? Why do people take classes and write papers in number theory ? Why do people keep digging all around making archaeological finds ? I won't even get started on poetry.

I don't accept the argument that all these should be the preoccupations of only the developed nations who have "some to spare". Things don't sequentially. Simultaneity in development is essential.

And it is incorrect to assume that the money "saved" by not sending a rocket is money that could have been used for roti-kapda-makaan. Unlike a household budget, any domestic expenditure ploughs back into the economy. So each is doing his part with no detriment to the other.

Imagine the unemployed scientists, engineers and out of work tea shop owners ! Much, as it may seem, I am not saying that 'keeping' the above group engaged is reason enough for having a lunar mission. :-) Just trying to give an overall picture that everyone is playing a part and 'creating' something. Not subdividing a static corpus, which is the notion that leads us to think of terms like 'wasteful expenditure'.

And while I hate to make a 'utility' argument, I will still make it because it is a popular line of thinking: in endeavours such as this the potential usefulness of an experiment cannot be completely gauged a-priori. Isn't the history of science full of pleasant surprises ?

[rocketboy]

I have a question. How is this going to help India and Indians?

It has been done at an expense of Rs386 crore

I am not asking with skepticism, just curious. What is the ROI?

I think it has got something to do with the presence of large quantities of helium in moon's surface (oru wild guess than). With deplenishing natural resources we have no choice but to lookout for fuel for our nuclear plants. Helium3 is a fuel for nuclear fusion reactors.

[podalangai]

I have a question. How is this going to help India and Indians?

It has been done at an expense of Rs386 crore

I am not asking with skepticism, just curious. What is the ROI?

One might ask the same question of many types of scientific research. Here's a (partial) list of things that've come out of NASA's space programme:

http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

[kannannn]

I have a question. How is this going to help India and Indians?

It has been done at an expense of Rs386 crore

I am not asking with skepticism, just curious. What is the ROI?
Badri,
Obviously the first advantage is in terms of registering our presence in the race for the moon. Now why is it even necessary? Because primarily, the next outpost in all probability will be there (US is already eyeing it) and moon could be an intermediary to perhaps further travels. Our next stage will see us landing a robot along the lines of the rover for material analysis. Mapping the moon's surface is an important component towards that goal (Chandrayaan I). Chandrayaan I is important in developing technologies useful in future deep space missions. For example, the IDSN (Indian Deep Space Network) will be required to track our vehicles in deep space missions in future (we have already tested it and it works :D). The Chandrayaan mission also offers a means of testing our capability to put vehicles in a controlled path for future deep space missions as well.

And then, of course there is the angle of the arms race. I don't think it is wise to go into it in detail, but with the technology developed for Chandrayaan, it is possible to increase our arms capability.

[Meera-ssg]

http://howyoudoin.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/chandrayaan-is-it-justified-for-a-developing-country/

to quote rocketboy from another's mouth

"You say these missions are not required just because of the money factor? So you want all the revenue which the government earns in say, teaching geography and placing dustbins?

You people cry about not enough electricity?One of the main aim of this mission is to look for helium-3 and develop technology for it.If this is successful India need not import coal and other fossil fuels from other countries to generate elecrticity. Compare 380cr with the amount of money it spends now on importing fuel for generating electricity.

And everyone nowadays are got so used to mobiles, the very factor which enabled this is satellites. By undertaking the moon mission we can develop more effecient launch vehicles, thereby reducing the cost of satellites and eventually everyday communication "

[Arthi]

Valuable information :D
INDIA :bow:

[mgb]

:thumbsup:
may be couple of decades down the line, newly weds can celebrate their honey moon in moon :P

[Vivasaayi]

What surprises me even more is the cost of this mission - just 386 crores.

amazing!!!!

[thamizhvaanan]

What surprises me even more is the cost of this mission - just 386 crores.

amazing!!!!

I read its just half of what China spent to put a chinese on space!!!

Kudos Indian scientists :notworthy:

[kannannn]

What surprises me even more is the cost of this mission - just 386 crores.

amazing!!!!

I read its just half of what China spent to put a chinese on space!!!

Kudos Indian scientists :notworthy:
I haven't read that, but putting a man on space involves much more expenditure and expertise. We need a recovery module, perhaps our cryogenic technology has to come to fruition and then there is the training, development of life support systems and so on. It is still some distance away but I am sure we will be there :D.

[thamizhvaanan]

I made a mistake, its not the chinese in space mission, it is indeed a lunar exploration mission similar to Chandarayan. China spent 187 billion USD on that project.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/05/content_7017311.htm

Whereas Indian mission cost 79 Billion USD.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-chases-china-to-the-moon-968841.html

India's project cost $79 million, considerably less than the Chinese and Japanese probes in 2007
But I am not telling that both the projects are comparable, perhaps Chinese mission does more tasks.. But the point is, we havent spent as much as what other nations have spent.. whatever work we do, we do it at a cheap cost. (like always :P )

[Badri]

Wonderful responses, especially PR & Kannan!

I was afraid this thread would go on and on as merely a self-congratulatory one! Hence I posed the question. After all, it would be good to understand just exactly why we are congratulating ourselves.

That was quite an enlightening response PR! Yes, as you say, when this much money has been spent, hasn't much of it finally made its way back into our own economy?

And yes, sometimes, just sometimes, you've got to keep up with the Joneses, I suppose or be left behind!

[padmanabha]

Chandrayaan-1, now on its way to the moon, has cost less than one-tenth of the Indian Premier League (IPL) rights bagged by Sony
Entertainment. Rocket

science may be no match for cricket when it comes to listing some of India's favourite things, but the frugality of its space odyssey could be a lesson to the world.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spent just over Rs 380 crore (about half the price of a Jumbo Jet) on Chandrayaan-1, with 1,000 scientists toiling over it for three years. A similar effort by NASA or any other space agency would have cost at least five times more. In real terms, Chandrayaan-1 cost only about 4% of Isro's budget over three years.

How did Isro do it? "Optimisation," says its chairman G Madhavan Nair, in an exclusive interview to STOI. "There are some tests the Americans would have done six times and we did only thrice. We scrutinise every parameter and optimised the tests. Yes, you may call it a calculated risk, but, touch wood, we have been successful with this approach so far.'

But this didn't mean cutting corners, insists the Isro chairman. "More than 30% of the sub-systems that went into Chandrayaan-1 were used by us in other operations. The PSLV we used for the launch is almost the same we have been using for several previous launches, with the only difference being the six enhanced strap-on motors (the quantity of solid propellants was increased from nine tonnes to 12 tonnes each)."

Optimising tests on such equipment and procedures helped Isro save a lot. But it has at least partly been forced to turn this spend smart and save-philosophy into a cherished principle. The IPL deal of about Rs 5,000 crore or $1 billion is equivalent to Isro's entire annual budget, while NASA's is 20 times as much.

The next big goal: Chandrayaan-2. The deadline: 2010. The cost: Rs 500 crore. That is still only one-tenth of IPL rights.

Isro's annual only recently increased to Rs 5,000 crore or $ 1 billion. This happened when the Mark 3 of GSLV was commissioned and there was a new thrust towards societal application of space projects. Five years ago, Isro's annual budget was merely around just $200 million.

On the brighter side, Antrix Corporation, Isro's commercial wing, has earned Rs 900 crore from commercial satellite launches and sale of remote sensing data last financial year and the revenues are growing at 25%. "We have launched 16 satellites for other countries so far and another four are on the anvil. Commercial launches add to our earnings," says Madhavan Nair. This should augur well for Isro, which has such ambitious projects as the Rs 12,000 crore manned space mission scheduled for 2015.

Another aspect that makes Isro stand out in the group of space-faring nations is its down-to-earth scientists. Anyone who has taken a peep into

the mission control at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota would have been struck by the simplicity of Isro scientists in crumpled white lab coats with the blue letters 'PSLV' on their back, who hugged each other when PSLV-C11 injected Chandrayaan-1 into the earth orbit about 18 minutes after take-off.

"We have a cohesive team which has an open culture. It is a culture developed from the times of Vikram Sarabhai, who used to treat everyone including the cook and the gardener as friends," says Madhavan Nair. Does that mean there are no ego clashes between scientists? "Oh, yes, there may be some, but we thrash out things in the open. For everyone, success of our projects is the ultimate goal."

[wrap07]

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/000200810311811.htm

Picture-perfect: Chandrayaan-1 camera goes operational

Bangalore: In yet another picture-perfect moment for India's moon mission, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) onboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft became operational on Friday and sent back spectacular images of Australia's coastline.

The Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore successfully operated the TMC through a series of commands, said a release from the Indian Space Research Organisation. Analysis of the first imagery received by the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu and later processed by Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) confirmed excellent performance of the camera.

The first imagery taken at 8 am IST from a height of 9,000 km shows the northern coast of Australia while the other taken at 12.30 pm IST from a height of 70,000 km shows Australia's southern coast.

TMC is one of the eleven scientific instruments (payloads) ofChandrayaan-1. The camera can take black and white pictures of an objectby recording the visible light reflected from it. The instrument has aresolution of about 5m.

Besides TMC, the other four Indian payloads of Chandrayaan-1 are the HyperSpectral Imager (HySI), Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI), High EnergyX-ray Spectrometer (HEX) and the Moon Impact Probe (MIP). The other sixpayloads of Chandrayaan-1 are from abroad.

The 1380-kg Chandrayaan-1 was successfully launched into an initial elliptical orbit around the Earth by PSLV-C11 on October 22, 2008. This was followed by four orbit raising manoeuvres, which together raised Chandrayaan-1's orbit to a much higher altitude.

The spacecraft is now circling the Earth in an orbit whose apogee(farthest point to Earth) lies at 2,67,000 km and perigee (nearest point to Earth) at 465 km. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about six days to go round the Earth once.

The spacecraft's performance is being continuously monitored and is normal.

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http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/11/stories/2008111161161000.htm

Moon probe ejection on November 14 or 15

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: ISRO will study Chandrayaan-1’s orbit for a day or two before commanding to eject on November 14 or 15 the 29-kg Moon Impact Probe (MIP), a box-like instrument on top of the spacecraft. The probe will crash-land on the Moon’s surface. Since the MIP is painted with the Indian flag on its sides, it will symbolically register the Indian presence on the Moon.

On Saturday (November 8), ISRO accomplished with aplomb the most crucial and critical manoeuvre of safely inserting Chandrayaan-1 into the lunar orbit with an aposelene of 7,502 km and a periselene of 504 km.

This was achieved by retro-firing the engine for 817 seconds, which pushed the spacecraft in the opposite direction of its journey, reduced its velocity and inserted it into the lunar orbit.

S. Satish, Director, Publications and Public Relations, ISRO, said: “The ISRO team was very cautious in executing this critical manoeuvre because we did not want to jeopardise the mission. This is a precious mission for us. Contingency plans were in place in case the liquid apogee motor (LAM) engine on board Chandrayaan-1 did not fire. Then, we would have used other thrusters on board the spacecraft to fire… There have been dynamic changes in our manoeuvres to reach the Moon.”

S. Ramakrishnan, Director (Projects), Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, said the orbit reduction under way now was the reverse of what ISRO did in approaching the Moon.

After the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) put Chandrayaan-1 in an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 22,866 km and a perigee of 256 km around the earth on October 22, ISRO performed four manoeuvres by firing the LAM to keep increasing this ellipticity.

On November 4, the spacecraft reached the vicinity of the Moon with an apogee of 3,80,000 km. The Moon is 3,84,000 km away from the earth. Then the crucial manoeuvre of inserting the spacecraft into the lunar orbit of 7,502 km by 504 km took place on November 8 and it was captured by the Moon’s gravity.

“We are now reducing the Chandrayaan’s orbit to come closer to the Moon,” Mr. Ramakrishnan said. On November 9, the LAM was fired and the spacecraft’s orbit around the Moon was further reduced to 7,502 km by 200 km. “The Moon’s gravity is not well characterised. It is not symmetrical like that of the earth. The Moon’s gravity is not well understood. So there will be uncertainties. When we fire the engine to reduce the spacecraft’s orbit, depending on the response, we have to do further corrections,” he said.

Mr. Ramakrishnan was confident that the remaining two manoeuvres would succeed because Chandrayaan-1 was already “in a stable orbit and it cannot vanish anywhere.”

[app_engine]

The impact probe lands on moon:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Chandrayaan-I_Impact_Probe_lands_on_moon/articleshow/3714245.cms

[mgb]

:yes:
but the landing wasnt as smooth as one would have wanted. nevertheless :thumbsup:

[wrap07]

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/15/stories/2008111558410100.htm

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/15/stories/2008111560841200.htm

INDIA LEAVES ITS FOOTPRINTS ON MOON

Indigenous effort all the way

:clap: :D

[Punnaimaran]

New Delhi: India's moon mission Chandrayaan-1 is facing the heat, literally. A month after its launch, an unexplained rise in temperature is causing concern for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).


ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair says Chandrayaan-1 is now hotter by 10 degree Celsius which is hot enough to affect its instruments.


Volcanoes have erupted on the moon in the past. And temperatures on the surface often reach 100 degree Celsius.


While it isn't clear yet what's triggered the rise in temperature, scientists say a thermal blanket around the satellite could be used to keep temperatures down.


Chandrayaan-1, India's first lunar mission, was launched on October 22 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota by PSLV-C11.


The Moon Impact Probe (MIP), with the Indian Tricolour pasted on its outer surface, was ejected on November 14 from Chandrayaan-1 and landed on the lunar surface.

Courtesy: www.ibnlive.com

[wrap07]

http://www.thehindu.com/holnus/008200811261411.htm

Chandrayaan working normally: ISRO

Bangalore (PTI): India's unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan is functioning normally even though there has been a rise in temperature in the moon's atmosphere, an ISRO official said on Wednesday.

"It is a usual phenomena because it is summer on the moon. There is nothing to worry. It will be normal by December," Satish, ISRP spokesperson said.

He said the craft's nine payloads, which have been switched on, are working fine and sending back data.

In view of the rise in temperature, ISRO will not work on all the payloads at a given time to ensure that they are not affected by the heat, he said.

"Two of the high voltage payloads SARA and Hex will be switched on shortly. These payloads are sensitive equipment and need more voltage. By the first week of December, the atmosphere will become benign on the moon," he said.

[directhit]

From Rediff messageboard :



Instead of spending thousands crores Rs. on moon mission why can't our scientists develops some strong satellite which can capture moments of POK,and related areas.
ARE YAAR OUR SCIENTISTS ARE PLANNING TO TAKE ALL OF US INDIANS TO MOON, AS SOON INDIA WILL BE OCCUPIED BY USA AND TERRORISTS, OUR BRAVE POLITICIANS? HAVE REALISED THEIR POWER AND SO THEY R ENCOURAGING THIS...
padichittu sirikkaradhaa naatin nelamaya nanachu azharadhaa therla :banghead: