Chandrayaan suffers a setback!

India’s maiden unmanned moon mission suffered a setback. The temperature range in the spacecraft is increasing as the space craft is on the sunlit portion of the moon. But, there will be no damage to the space craft. As a result, ISRO cannot use all it’s instruments at the same time.

According to a report in New Scientist, the spacecraft is currently facing external temperatures of 100 degrees Celsius, and cooling systems aim to maintain the spacecraft’s interior at around 40 degrees C.

“It is local summer for the satellite,” Chandrayaan project director Mylswamy Annadurai told New Scientist.

When the craft passes by the dark side of the Moon external temperatures will fall to as low as -100 degrees C.

Still, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is working in unknown territory, on its first mission operating outside the Earth’s gravity.

“The thermal environment is very demanding. I think it somewhat surprised ISRO,” observed Paul Spudis, scientist at the Houston-based Lunar and Planetary Institute. “They have ways to mitigate the issue, so I do not see this as a big problem,” he added.

Annadurai said that the spacecraft systems are designed to withstand different temperature ranges depending on their use and exposure to radiation.

For example, solar panels that supply power to the spacecraft can withstand from minus to plus 120 degrees C. Others, like its infrared detector can only handle up to 50 degrees C.

Nine of the 11 instruments on-board Chandrayaan have now been switched on for calibration and simple health checks.

The spacecraft’s temperature is expected to stabilise by the end of December.

Until then, scientists will use one instrument at a time, as required, but will be able to operate all instruments simultaneously by mid-January.

Pictures of Moon’s surface taken by MIP

The following two pictures has been released by ISRO, which was taken by the Moon Impact Probe.

Source: Indian Space Research Organisation

Source: Indian Space Research Organisation

The above images are light weight JPEG Images. If you want the orginal BMP images (large file size), use the below links:

Moon Impact Probe Picture 1

Moon Impact Probe Picture 2

Tricolour to be planted on Moon tomorrow!

Moon Impact Probe is all set to be launched to the surface of the moon. Chandrayaan 1 entered it’s operational orbit yesterday. (13/11/2008) Tomorrow, Moon Impact Probe, which has our tricolour painted on it’s side will get detach from Chandrayaan at around 10 pm. Miniature Indian flags are painted on four sides of MIP. It will signify the entry of India on Moon.

During its 20-minute descent to the moon’s surface, MIP will take pictures and transmit these back to the ground. MIP is one of the 11 scientific instruments (payloads) onboard Chandrayaan-1, India’s first unmanned spacecraft mission to Moon launched on October 22.

Developed by ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP is to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon.

The probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions. This apart, scientific exploration of the moon at close distance is also intended using MIP.The 29-kg MIP consists of a C-band Radar Altimeter for continuous measurement of altitude of the probe, a video imaging system for acquiring images of the surface of moon from the descending probe and a mass spectrometer for measuring the constituents of extremely thin lunar atmosphere during its 20-minute descent to the lunar surface.From the operational circular orbit of about 100 km height passing over the polar regions of the moon, it is intended to conduct chemical, mineralogical and photo geological mapping of the moon with Chandrayaan-1′s 11 scientific instruments (payloads).

Two of those 11 payloads – Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) – have already been successfully switched on. TMC has successfully taken the pictures of Earth and the Moon.

After the release of MIP tomorrow, the other scientific instruments would be turned on sequentially leading to the normal phase of the two-year mission.

Chandrayaan 1 Successfully enters Operational Lunar Orbit

Today, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has 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 conducted during the past three days by repeatedly firing the spacecraft’s 440 Newton Liquid Engine. As part of these manoeuvres, the engine was fired for a cumulative duration of about sixteen minutes. As a result of these manoeuvres, 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 while 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 carry Chandrayaan-1 from its initial Earth orbit to its intended operational lunar orbit with the use of its liquid engine has been successfully completed. During these operations, Chandrayaan-1’s liquid engine built by Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Thiruvananthapuram, has been fired a total of ten times successfully. In its present operational orbit, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft takes about two hours to go round the moon once.

From this operational circular orbit of about 100 km height passing over the polar regions of the moon, it is intended to conduct chemical, mineralogical and photo geological mapping of the moon with Chandrayaan-1’s 11 scientific instruments (payloads). Two of those 11 payloads – Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) – have already been successfully switched ON. TMC has successfully taken the pictures of Earth and moon.

The next major event of Chandrayaan-1 mission planned in the coming days is the release of Moon Impact Probe (MIP) from the spacecraft and its eventual hitting of the moon’s surface.

Road to Chandrayaan 2 has began!

With Chandrayaan-1 well on its way to moon without any glitch, Indian Space Research Organisation has now initiated a dialogue with its Russian counterpart of worksharing of Chandrayaan-2 which features a lander and a rover.

“Conceptual studies are in place. Overall configuration is finalised but the scientific experiments are yet to be finalised. It may take six months (for finalisation)”, ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said in Bangalore.

“The lander will be from Russia. The Russian space agency is cooperating with us. The rover will be a joint development between Russia and India. Many of the scientific instruments (payloads on board Chandrayaan-2) will be from India”, Nair, also Secretary in the Department of Space, said.

Unlike the Chandrayaan-1 which will orbit the moon at an altitude of 100 km mapping topography and the mineralogical content of the lunar soil, the Chandrayaan-2 mission involves a lunar orbiting spacecraft and a lander and a rover on the moon’s surface.

Project Director of Chandrayaan-1 Mayilsami Annadurai said the Government has approved a Rs 425 crore budget for the Chandrayaan-2 venture, with seed money of Rs 50 crore already in place.

Even for building the lander, India can contribute its expertise, Annadurai said, adding, work-sharing discussions on the mission (who will do what) are in progress with the Russian space agency.

“After the lander lands gently on the Moon’s surface, rover will come out and it can move around. It will pick up soil or sand. We will have some instruments that will enable the rover to do in situation (chemical and mineralogical) analysis there (to probe on the presence water vapour and Helium-3 and things of that nature)”, Annadurai said.

Instead of bringing the samples back to earth, ISRO scientists said the rover would be able to do analysis there and send data to the orbiting satellite which then in turn will transmit to the earth with the Indian Deep Space Network performing the task of receiving the radio signals.

Annadurai said Chandrayaan-2 is targeted to be launched four years from the launch of Chandrayaan-1 -October 2012.

Chandrayaan-2 will be a three-tonne class satellite, he said.

Officials of the Bangalore-headquartered ISRO said there might be a provision to accommodate payloads from other space agencies on board Chandrayaan-2 as happened in Chandrayaan-1.

But Nair said: “We have not made an assessment of the payloads which are going on board (Chandrayaan-2). So, that will happen in the next six months. Then we will decide. If there is extra capacity, we will use that (give it to other space agencies)”.