Virtual Shiksha

India is set to launch it's first unmanned moon mission - Chandrayaan 1 on 22nd of October 2008.

This will place India into an exclusive club of countries who have been able to do so.

Chandrayaan 1 is an unmanned mission which will orbit moon at an altitude of 100 KM for two years and map the surface of moon. Apart from this, it will carry many instruments to perform different types of experiments.

Actually, this mission has become of a sort of international one headed by India. This is some kind of role reversal now.

The Chandrayaan 1 will consist of 5 indigenous payloads as well as 6 other payloads contributed by various countries.

The India payloads carried on the Chandrayaan 1 are:

TMC Terrain Mapping stereo Camera (TMC) in the panchromatic band, having 5 m spatial resolution and 20 km swath.

HySI Hyper Spectral Imaging camera (HYSI) operating in 400-950nm band with a spectral resolution of 15nm and spatial resolution of 80m with a swath of 20km.

LLRILunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) with height resolution of about 10m

HEXHigh Energy X-ray spectrometer (HEX) using Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CdZnTe) detector in the 30-250 keV energy region with spatial resolution of 40km

MIPMoon Impact Probe (MIP) as piggyback on the main orbiter of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft which will impact on the surface of the moon

Apart form these, following equipment form other countries will also be taken along with Chandrayaan 1.

C1XSChandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) through ESA -a collaboration between Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK and ISRO Satellite Centre, ISRO. Part of this payload is redesigned by ISRO to suit Chandrayaan-1 scientific objectives.

SIR-2Near Infra Red spectrometer (SIR-2) from Max Plank Institute, Lindau, Germany through ESA

SARASub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA) through ESA, from Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Sweden and Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ISRO. The Data Processing Unit of this payload/ experiment is designed and developed by ISRO, while Swedish Institute of Space Physics develops the payload.

RADOMRadiation Dose Monitor Experiment (RADOM) from Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

MiniSARMiniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR) from Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University and Naval Air Warfare Centre, USA through NASA

M3Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) from Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA through NASA

This is going to be a great moment of triumph for India. So, do not forget to watch it on Television at around 6' O Clock in the morning of 22nd October 2008.

For more information on moon mission, please see:

http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/home.htm