Military & Aerospace

India's Mission to Moon
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Issue Vol 24.1 Jan-Mar2009 | Date : 21 Dec , 2010

November 14, 2008, 20:31 hours, India created history in its march towards technological prowess. Indian tricolour was placed on the lunar surface and India announced to the world its arrival on the lunar surface. The Indian flag was painted on the four sides of Moon Impact Probe (MIP), one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, that successfully impacted the lunar surface at 20:31 hrs on November 14, 2008. This is the first Indian built object to reach the surface of the moon.

pslv-c11-lift-off

The point of MIP’s impact was near the Shakelton crater close to Moon’s South Polar Region. Weighing about 34 kg at the time of its launch onboard Chandrayaan-1, MIP carried a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system took the pictures of the moon’s surface as the MIP approached the lunar surface. The radar altimeter measured the rate of descent of the probe and the mass spectrometer made a detailed study of the extremely thin lunar atmosphere.India joined the select band of six countries who have undertaken lunar missions by launching the first un-manned mission to Moon-Chandrayaan-1. In a historic flight conducted from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota at 06:22 hrs on October 22, 2008, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C11, successfully launched the 1380 kg Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft into a transfer orbit with a perigee (nearest point from Earth) of 255 km and an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 22,860 km, inclined at an angle of 17.9 degrees to the equator. The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was successfully placed in the lunar orbit after a series of critical manoeuvres performed from ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) facilities at Bangalore.

Also read: Trends in Space Weaponization

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) used for launching Chandrayaan-1 is the uprated version of its standard configuration. Weighing 316 tonnes at lift-off, the vehicle used larger strap-on motors (PSOM-XL) to achieve required higher payload capability. PSOM-XL uses 12 tonnes of solid propellants instead of nine tonnes used in the earlier configuration of PSLV. PSLV is a four stage launch vehicle employing both solid and liquid propulsion stages. PSLV is the trusted workhorse launch Vehicle of ISRO with 13 consecutively successful flights.

Chandrayaan-1_spacecraft

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Tiruvananthapuram, the lead centre for the  development of launch vehicle, was responsible for the vehicle design, development of avionic systems, control and navigation software and a host of other sub-systems. Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre also at Thiruvaanthapuram was responsible for the development of liquid stages used in second and fourth stages of PSLV and also the liquid engine which propelled the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft beyond Earth bound orbit. The liquid engine was operated ten times proving its reliability and robust design. ISRO Inertial Systems Unit supplied inertial systems such as gyros.PSLV is the trusted workhorse launch Vehicle of ISRO. During 1993-2008 period, PSLV had twelve consecutive successful launches.  During this fifteen-year period, PSLV repeatedly proved its reliability and versatility by launching 29 satellites (13 Indian and 16 foreign) into Low Earth, Sun Synchronous and Geosynchronous Transfer Orbits.  The launch of Chandrayaan-1 was the fourteenth flight of PSLV.

Moon : Moon is the nearest celestial body to the Earth and lies at a distance of about 3, 84,000 km from the Earth. It is the only natural satellite of the Earth and circles the Earth once in 27.3 days. Interestingly, the Moon also takes 27.3 days to spin around its axis.  Thus, one hemisphere of the moon, usually referred to as ‘far side’, cannot be seen from the Earth.

Though without atmosphere and devoid of liquid water, Moon is a world with surface features like mountains, plains, plateaus and lowlands, as on Earth.  But unlike the Earth, the Moon has millions of craters.  Formation and evolution of the Moon is of importance in understanding the history of our solar system, including our own Earth.

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