ISRO receives images from Chandrayaan-1

Without doubt October 22, 2008 was a great day for India, especially for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), when it successfully launched it’s first unmanned moon mission spacecraft Chandrayaan-1. PSLV-C11 was used to place the 1380 kg spacecraft, laced with international research instruments including a high-resolution Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), into the earth’s elliptical orbit.

According to a media release, the moon probe Chandrayaan-1 has helped India looking beyond the space-horizon. Scientists at ISRO became too proud when the first image of Earth taken by the optical sensor fitted at Chandrayaan-1 reached at their hands. Images sent by the spacecraft are of high quality and indicate normal operation of Chandrayaan-1.

The Terrain Mapping Camera placed onboard moon spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 is capable of taking black and white shots of Earth from space and it is doing well in this direction, said ISRO. The images sent are continuously being monitored back at home in order to assess health of the probe relentlessly.

According to ISRO, “The TMC was operated through a series of commands from the spacecraft control centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac)”.

The first images, which were received by the Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu was later processed by the Indian Space Science Data Centre. The first images were taken at 8 am from a height of 9,000 km on Oct 29. The first picture shows the northern coast of Australia while the second image taken at 12:30 pm from a height of 70,000 km shows Australia's southern coast.

The TMC is one of the 11 scientific instruments of Chandrayaan-1 and the camera can take black and white pictures of an object. The instrument has a resolution of about 5 meters.

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