Chandrayaan-1 enters lunar orbit, sucessfully orbiting the moon

Proud moments for India!! India's first unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 entered the lunar orbit on Saturday after Indian Space Research Organisation scientists successfully carried out a highly complex and tricky manoeuvre crossing another historic milestone in the country's space programme.

ISRO scientists at the Mission Control Centre near Bengaluru fired the spacecraft's liquid engine at 16:51 hours for a duration of 817 seconds in a hit or miss Lunar Orbit Insertion operation in the maiden moon mission, 18 days after it was launched from Sriharikota spaceport.

"For the first time in the history of India, an Indian-made satellite is circulating the Moon ", a jubilant ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told after the home-grown satellite broke away from the Earth's gravitational field for the first time and reached the moon. India becomes the sixth country to put a satellite in lunar orbit.

The engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an intended orbit around the moon.

The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (perilune) lies at a distance of about 504 kms from the moon's surface, while the farthest point (apolune) lies at about 7,502 km.

A relieved Nair said today's operation was the "most crucial moment" in the mission."We have done it," he declared. "For the last 20 minutes, almost all our hearts were at a standstill," Nair said immediately after the the challenging manoeuvre was carried out.

"Nobody else in the world perhaps would have got such a precise lunar orbit as India did in the first attempt," Nair said.

Chandrayaan-1 to reach final orbit on Nov 15

India’s first unmanned moon mission spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 is performing well within all scientific parameters till date since its launch. Now the scientists at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are expecting the lunar probe to enter into it’s last orbit on Nov 15. Creating a history of leaving Earth’s gravity by any Indian made spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1 enters into the celestial space towards the moon at 4.56 am on Tuesday last! It was a great achievement for India, and particularly for ISRO.

In place of planned five minutes firing, the 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) on board of Chandrayaan-1 was fired for only about two-and-a-half minutes to make the spacecraft positioned along the moon’s highway taking it away from the Earth’s gravity effect. So smooth switch over and fine maneuvering of the lunar spacecraft has made Indian scientists jubilant at home. At the time of transition, apogee (farthest point to earth) of Chandrayaan-1 was 3,84,000 km and it was only 500 km away from the lunar surface.

About the lunar transfer trajectory, Mylaswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan-1 project director said, “I was at ISRO’s telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac) at Bangalore since early morning and we were going step by step very carefully. As soon as we received a signal that Chandrayaan had successfully entered the main highway to the moon, there was a jubilation in the mission control room”.

Next critical stage of the mission is lunar orbit insertion (LOI); but scientists are at no pressure to face LOI on Saturday between 5 pm and 6 pm. “I am hoping that the manoeuvre will go off smoothly on Saturday too,” Annadurai said.

LOI is a complex stage for any moon mission, as about 30% of moon missions of US and erstwhile Soviet Union have failed during this stage. ISRO is now gearing up for the ‘D’ day. After successfully establishing at the lunar orbit, Chandrayaan-1 will send images of the lunar surface with the help of Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) available on board of the spacecraft. The camera is kept switched on, which has already sent black & white pictures of Earth back home.

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.

India launches Chandrayaan-1 successfully

PSLV-C11 carrying India's first unmanned moon spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 lifted off successfully from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre today.

At the end of the 49-hour countdown, the 44.4 meter tall four-stage PSLV-C11 blasted off from the second launch pad catapulting the country into the select club that have sent missions to the moon, after the US, former Soviet Union, European Space Agency, China and Japan.

Carrying aloft the lunar orbiter Chandrayaan, the rocket, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C11) lifted off from the second launchpad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here and broke through the scudding cloud cover at 6.22 a.m., exactly on schedule.

Trailing its characteristic orange plume, the 44-metre-tall 316-tonne PSLV started to move into its designated orbit within minutes, to sling Chandrayaan into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), as scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) cheered at this spaceport off the Andhra Pradesh coast, 80 km north of Chennai.

From the GTO the satellite's onboard liquid apogee motor (LAM) will be fired to take it to the lunar orbit - 387,000 km from earth - around Nov 8.

Once the 1,380-kg Chandrayaan gets near the moon its speed will be reduced to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical orbit.

At the earliest possible opportunity Chandrayaan will drop its Moon Impact Probe (MIP) which will land on the moon's soil carrying India's flag, among many scientific instruments. After that, the spacecraft will also activate its cameras and other instruments on board.

Chandrayaan will orbit the moon for two years. It carries 11 experimental payloads, five Indian and six from the European Space Agency (3), the US (2) and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1).

At liftoff, PSLV C11 weighed 22 tonnes more than earlier PSLV models, as its six strap-on motors were 3.5 metres bigger at 13.5 metre and the rocket carried 12 tonnes of solid propellant as against the usual 9 tonnes.

Chandrayaan-1 to be launched tomorrow

If things go as planned, India's unmanned moon spacecraft - Chandrayaan-1 - embarks on a two-year mission tomorrow seeking to throw more light on earth's only natural satellite. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spokesman S Satish said the sky is overcast and there are heavy rains, but it is not a cause for worry.

A delay will happen only in case of a cyclone or lightning. Rains will not hamper the spacecraft's lift off, ISRO sources said.

"Only cyclone-related incidents and lightning could force a delay," the sources said. The lift-off is slated around 0620 hours on board indigenously-built rocket, PSLV-C11, from the spaceport of Sriharikota on the east coast in Andhra Pradesh, some 100 kms north of Chennai.

The event would mark India's entry into select band of lunar explorers - the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan, China, the US and Russia which have undertaken moon missions.

"Basically, this (Chandrayaan-1) is meant for a comprehensive mapping of the lunar surface," ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said. "Earlier missions (by others) focused on specific regions or looked at one aspect or other only.

It's for the first time (in the world) that we will have the entire lunar surface mapped up." Chandrayaan-1 is seen by some analysis as a move by India to catch up with Asian rivals China and Japan, and not lag behind in the race for moon.

Coupled with the "pride factor", Chandrayaan-1 would signal India's rising international stature, seen as a reflection of its space prowess as well as build on its technological capability to undertake inter-planetary missions in the coming years.

ISRO to launch a manned mission to moon

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is reportedly planning for a manned mission to the moon in 2014. The proposal is in its initial stage and has not been approved yet. The proposed budget for this manned mission is estimated to be around Rs 1,000 crore.

The proposal already got cleared by the Space Commission and subsequently it was submitted to the government. A high-powered committee is perusing the proposal and the ISRO is awaiting the verdict which is likely to be given in next two months. But, the process of selecting the team alreday started. MC Dathan, director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota Range informed, “Our chairman is very keen on the project getting approval. He has asked us to come out with complete proposals internally.”

ISRO is planning to use Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) for the manned mission as Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is not capable of launching a load of over 1,500 kg. The organisation is aiming to develop a full-fledged training facility for the crew in Bangalore even though the Indian Air Force is capable to do so. Besides, there are plans for building a launch pad with facilities for entry into the human lunar space capsule and an escape chute for the crew if anything goes awry. The other two existing launch pads are not deemed fit for this purpose.

Meanwhile, the unmanned mission, named Chandrayaan-I, is expected to be launched between 6.20 am and 6.35 am on October 22 from southern India. The 1.5-ton spacecraft which is devised to document the moon’s surface and chemical characteristics while creating a three-dimensional topographic map, will take approximately eight days to travel about 240,000 miles before reaching its final orbit 60 miles above the surface of the Moon.