Mission Moon

Chandrayan- The unmanned rocket successfully launched on a two-year mission at 18:22 from Sriharikotathe international space race Wednesday with the successful launch of an ambitious two-year mission to study the moon's laThe unmanned lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1, or "moon craft" in ancient Sanskrit, launched at 6:20 a.m. (8:50 p.m. ET) from the Sriharikota space center in southern India.The mission seeks high-resolution imaging of the moon's surface, especially the permanently shadowed polar regions, according to the Indian Space Research Organization. It will also search for evidence of water or ice and attempt to identify the chemical breakdown of certain lunar rocks, the group said. Despite the numerous missions to the moon over the past 50 years, "we really don't have a good map," said Miles O'Brien, CNN chief technology and environment correspondent. "The goal is to come up with a very intricate, three-dimensional map of the moon."
The Chandrayaan-1 is carrying payloads from the United States, European Union countries Germany, Britain, Sweden and Bulgaria, and India plans to share the data from the mission with other programs, including NASA. Watch the launch of India's first lunar mission »
ISRO said on its Web site that the mission would lay the groundwork for future lunar missions and "probe the physical characteristics of the lunar surface in greater depth than previous missions by other nations."
"It will also give us a deeper understanding about the planet Earth itself or its origins," a statement on the Web site said. "Earlier missions did not come out with a full understanding of the moon and that is the reason scientists are still interested. This will lay the foundation for bigger missions and also open up new possibilities of international networking and support for planetary programs."dscape. Until now, India's space launches have been more practical, with weather warning satellites and communiations systems, The Associated Press cited former NASA associated administrator Scott Pace as saying.
To date, only the U.S. Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China have sent missions to the moon, according to AP.
Critics of the mission have questioned its $80 million price tag, saying the money should have been spent by the government to improve education and fight poverty.
But, "there are scientists that would argue that there are plenty of things we don't know about the moon ... and India might have the know-how" to find answers, said CNN's Sara Sidner in New Delhi.
The United States and the Soviet Union dominated the field of lunar exploration from the late 1950s. The United States is preparing for its own mission slated for next spring -- the first U.S. lunar mission in more than a decade, according to NASA.
Soviet spacecraft were the first to fly by, land on and orbit the moon. Luna 1, launched on January 2, 1959, and sped by the moon two days later.
Luna 2 was launched on an impact mission on September 12, 1959, striking the surface two days later. Luna 9 launched on January 31, 1966, becoming the first craft to successfully land on the moon and send back data, touching down on the surface on January 31, 1966, and transmitting until February 3, 1967, when its batteries ran out.

In close to three decades of its existence, ISRO has never attempted anything as ambitious. It has so far built a dozen sophisticated satellites for communications, weather prediction and mapping natural resources. For instance, Doordarshan programmes are transmitted via INSAT channels. In rocketry, its top-of-the-line Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) can punch a satellite the size and weight of a Maruti car into an orbit 1,000 km in space. Later this year, it will test a far more powerful launcher, capable of placing a satellite into an orbit of around
36,000 km. But the moon at 3,84,467 km from the earth is still 10 times further than any distance that ISRO has attempted.
Given its current technological capability, the budgetary constraints and the time frame of five years it has set for itself, the organisation is clearly planning a modest first launch. Lunar buffs may be disappointed that India initially may not look at landing a man on the moon. What has emerged as the best option is a lunar orbiter bristling with an array of sophisticated cameras and measuring instruments that would circle the moon for several years and conduct a series of experiments.
To do this, apart from building such a hi-tech craft, ISRO would have to augment its rocketry and master the intricate and difficult task of navigating it over such a great distance and controlling it for several years. Although the moon appears like a giant football in the sky, getting a spacecraft to rendezvous with it is likened to hitting a one rupee coin placed at a distance of 25 km with a bullet from a rifle.
Yet the very nature of India's quest has already ignited fierce debate in scientific circles. Especially given that after the Soviet's Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to "impact" on its surface in 1959, the moon has been the most studied object in the solar system -- 97 per cent of its surface has already been mapped. The US stopped its man-on-the-moon programme three years after Apollo 11's historic landing in 1969. The Soviets, who were beaten in the race to the moon by the US, stopped sending orbiters to it since 1976. By then close to 382 kg of moon rock had been brought back to earth by various Apollo and Luna missions, giving scientists ample samples for research. The US and the Soviet Union then turned to exploring other planets in the solar system. Only in the '90s did interest resurface with the Japanese sending its Hiten orbiter, followed by the US-built Clementine and last year by the Lunar Prospector.
For these reasons many Indian scientists sneer at ISRO's attempt to "reinvent the wheel". Professor H.S. Mukunda, chairman, aerospace engineering department, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, says bluntly: "It is the stupidest thing to do. What others did 30 years ago, we are trying to do now. It won't bring the country any technical benefit." Mukunda instead wants ISRO to go commercial by specialising in low-cost access to space by providing the cheapest launchers in the business.
Some senior scientists also feel that the Space Department hasn't as yet fulfilled its basic objectives of collecting and transmitting accurate information about the country's resources. Data received from its remote-sensing satellites pile up unutilised though it's no fault of ISRO -- institutions to process them have still not been adequately set up. But with ISRO's limited budget, the scientists point out, it cannot afford to spend money on research and development that has no direct operational use. Instead, the money should be spent on building superior satellites.
They do have a point. Although ISRO already has six communications satellites orbiting the earth, the 80 transponders they provide form only half the projected demand. There is also a battle raging over whether building satellites should be the sole preserve of ISRO. Many private agencies feel that the space department has been too slow in perfecting its capability and either needs to speed up its act or get out of the way. They regard the moon mission as a "foolhardy" distraction.
Realising that its lunar plans were bound to raise controversy, ISRO scientists in the past year have been working quietly to build support for it. Last October, at the annual meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences, they requested a special session and briefed the country's top scientists on their mission for three hours. Professor Narendra Kumar, director, Raman Research Institute and current president of the Indian Academy of Sciences, came out convinced that ISRO was on the right trajectory. Later he elaborated: "There is no doubt the spin-off technology is enormous. We will push our rocketry, processing systems and communications to the limits of their capability. Such a mission becomes a major point of convergence for frontier technology."
There is little doubt about the tremendous hi-tech bonanza that the Apollo and Luna missions have bes-towed on the world. Whether in the development of sophisticated error-free computers, light-weight batteries or advanced composites that strengthen tennis rackets. Moreover, the mid-'90s has seen a major renewal of interest in lunar exploration. In 1998, the Lunar Prospector made the most tantalising discovery that there is water-ice in some of the moon's craters. Though much more research has to be done to confirm the findings, it holds the possibility of humans not only colonising the moon, but also using it as a base station for future outer-space missions. Currently carting a litre of water from the earth to be used by astronauts costs close to $22,000 (Rs 9.68 lakh).
There have been other discoveries on its surface that have kindled interest, especially the presence of an abundance of helium 3 that is regarded as one of the cleanest fuels but is found in sparse quantities on the earth. With technology being developed to harness the gas to generate power, the moon holds enormous potential for earthlings. All these developments have seen several nations dusting their moon plans. Apart from the US, the European Space Agency is now planning a major expedition to the moon and has long-term plans of setting up a space station. Just as in Antarctica, everyone is suddenly eager to get a share of the pie.
Scientifically too, the moon holds many unanswered mysteries. With no atmosphere and not much geological churning going on, the moon's surface rocks are said to be 4.6 billion years old or around the age of the solar system. For researchers, it is akin to looking at the pristine state of the early universe through the lunar lens. ISRO anticipates that in the next decade or so, there would be international co-operation to speed up the exploration and exploitation of the moon's resources and would like to be part of the pack.
Perhaps the major reason that ISRO is attempting such a launch is that it is eminently do-able. Says S. Rangarajan, Satcom programme chief who will be the mission co-ordinator: "We already have the heritage in terms of the spacecraft needed. Now all we need to do is optimise its performance." In rocketry, for instance, there are no major modifications to be made to the PSLV. At best, its fourth-stage rocket has to be tanked up with 10 per cent more fuel, points out V. Adimurthy, group director, Aerospace Flight Dynamics at ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSCC) in Thiruvananthapuram.
Adimurthy, a part of the feasibility team, is in charge of souping up the PSLV to meet the lunar module's long-distance journey that is expected to take five days. In a normal flight, the PSLV ejects its payload of 1 tonne within 11 minutes of lift off. But in the modified version that Adimurthy is designing, the payload, which will be a lunar orbiter, will weigh only around 350 kg. That saving in weight will allow the last-stage motor carrying the orbiter to travel at times at superfast speeds of 28,800 km per hour needed to break free of the earth's clutches and put it on course for a lunar tryst. The real challenge will come in precisely navigating the spacecraft throughout its 120-hour journey to the moon and tracking it thereafter.
The orbiter itself will be designed and built at the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore. Says P.S. Goel, the centre's director who is likely to head the team: "There is nothing fundamental that we have not already done." They do need to build sophisticated instruments such as spectrometers, reflectometers and stereoscopic cameras that will collect and process an array of data from the moon's surface as the orbiter regularly goes around it and transmits the information back to earth. Lunar expert N. Bhandari, a senior professor at ISRO's Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, is chalking out a range of experiments that Indians can do including studying such curious phenomenon as unexplained levitation of dust in the airless lunar environment and also exploring the possibility of water in the moon. What makes the orbiter the most feasible option is the cost. In all with the PSLV launch costing around Rs 120 crore, the lunar spacecraft around Rs 100 crore and the data centres for tracking and telemetry another Rs 130 crore, the country for as little as Rs 350 crore could send a mission to the moon. It is less than half the price of a Boeing 747. The other option of having a lander would mean there would have to be a compromise on the number of experiments that can be carried out by the lunar craft, apart from the difficult task of ensuring a softlanding on the surface.
Perhaps the costliest alternative is putting a man on the moon. The country does not as yet have powerful rockets to launch a lunar module weighing a minimum of 2 tonne to such a distance. Apart from that, work would have to be done to make the module livable by reducing the noise and vibration levels. More importantly, India would have to set up a centre to train astronauts to withstand the tremendous strain in space. All these would jack up costs considerably putting it out of reach for the country's space researchers.
For ISRO, the moon mission comes at a time when, having fulfilled some of its basic objectives like building and launching satellites, it is now setting its sights on new challenges. Also, India has not been able to make major breakthroughs either in building civilian aircraft or in increasing the speed of its railways engines. What Indian technology requires is excitement and confidence. Goel cites the US parallel where the moon mission in the '60s ignited the American public and pushed the country ahead in its race for technology with the Soviet Union. He says, "The money spent on such a mission by India will be nothing in comparison to the delta of confidence we will derive and the feeling in the public that even our country can do it."
The coming months will determine whether India's proposed mission to the moon will be a giant leap for the country's space programme or just in the mind of its scientists.