Chandrayaan 1 launch
9:11 AM // 0 comments // ngsk // Category: News , Technology //
India's first moonshot, Chandrayaan 1, lifted off at dawn this morning from the launch site in Andrha Pradesh on its two-year mission.The spacecraft sucessfully reached parking orbit around the Earth in preparation for a trans-lunar injection burn which will send the craft towards the Moon.
"What we have started is a remarkable journey," G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of ISRO, told reporters. All four stages of the PSLV-C11 launch vehicle performed flawlessly, says the space agency.
Chandrayaan 1 will orbit the Moon, searching for water at the poles and Helium 3 - extremely rare on Earth but believed to exist in large quantities on the lunar surface - which could become an extremely valuable commodity in the future as a fuel for fusion power stations.
The unmanned craft will also produce a 3D map of the lunar surface when it arrives after a five day journey.
ISRO is planning more launches before a proposed manned Earth orbital mission and an unmanned probe to Mars in four years time
The $80 million mission puts India alongside other lunar-explorers such as the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency, China and Japan, but the program has roused criticism that the money would have been better spent on education and fighting poverty.
The mission could lead to breakthroughs here on Earth, with one of the objectives of the mission being to scan for Helium 3. This isotope is rare on Earth but could be a valuable source of future energy, powering nuclear fusion. Whatever happened to their rice power idea?
Chandrayaan, which means "moon craft" in Sanskrit, is carrying payloads from countries around the world including Britain, Germany, Bulgaria, Sweden, as well as the U.S. The craft aims to achieve and maintain a two-year orbit in order to collect valuable data. Its only direct contact with the moon will be via a 30kg Moon Impact Probe (MIP) that will slam into the lunar surface to uncover hidden metals and minerals.
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