Indian probe lands on moon, sends images

BANGALORE, India (AFP) — An Indian probe landed on the moon on Friday, the Indian Space Research Organisation announced, in a milestone for the country's 45-year-old space programme.

The probe touched down on the moon at 8:34pm (1504 GMT), 25 minutes after it was ejected from an unmanned spacecraft orbiting the moon, spokesman S. Satish said.

"During its descent from Chandrayaan-1 an onboard video camera transmitted lunar pictures to the ISRO command centre," Satish said in the southern Indian city of Bangalore where the national space agency is headquartered.

Scientists monitoring the probe cheered as ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair announced the success of the country's first lunar mission, which began on October 22 when a rocket transported Chandrayaan-1 into space.

The probe, carrying three instruments and with the Indian flag painted on its outer panes, settled in a crater in the moon's south pole.

Nair said the landing was perfect.

"We have now successfully put our national flag on the lunar surface," he told a news conference.

"The moon has been very favourable to us and this is a very productive and fruitful mission," he said, and added: "We have also emerged as a low-cost travel agency to space," referring to the mission's 80-million dollar tag.

Chandrayaan-1 is on a two-year orbital mission to provide a detailed map of the mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics of the moon's surface.

Buoyed by its success, ISRO plans to send a second unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2012 and separately launch satellites to study Mars and Venus.

India started its space programme in 1963, developing its own satellites and launch vehicles to reduce dependence on overseas agencies.

It first staked its case for a share of the commercial launch market by sending an Italian satellite into orbit in April last year. In January, it launched an Israeli spy satellite.

India is also hoping the mission will boost its space programme into the same league as regional powerhouses Japan and China.

As well as looking to grab a larger slice of the global commercial satellite launch market, India, Japan and China also see their space programmes as an important symbol of their international stature and economic development.

But India still has a long way to go to catch up with China which, together with the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency, is already well established in the commercial launch sector.

China's immediate goal is the establishment of a space lab, with Beijing's long-term ambition to develop a rival to the International Space Station, a project involving the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and some European countries.

Japan has also been boosting its space programme and has set a goal of sending an astronaut to the moon by 2020.

Japan's first lunar probe, Kaguya, was successfully launched in September last year, releasing two baby satellites to study lunar gravity and other projects.
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Finally Chandrayaan in lunar Orbit

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India on Saturday successfully put its first unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-I into lunar orbit - a major step towards placing it in its designated slot 100 km from the moon.

“The spacecraft was placed in an elliptical orbit - at 7,500 km aposelene (farthest from moon) and 500 km periselene (nearest to moon) through complex manoeuvres,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S Satish said.

“The liquid apogee motor (LAM) onboard was fired for 805 seconds (13.4 minutes) between 5 pm (IST) and 5.15 pm (IST) to put the spacecraft into the elliptical orbit around the moon," Satish added.

In this orbit, the spacecraft takes 10 hours to complete one revolution around the moon.

Over the next two-three days, Chandrayaan will be progressively lowered to an orbit that will be 500 km aposelene and 100 km periselene.

“The spacecraft will be gently pushed to its designated slot in the lunar orbit and positioned at a distance 100 km from the surface of the moon,” Satish said.

The complex manoeuvres were executed by ISRO’s telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac) on the outskirts of Bangalore and monitored by its deep space network (DSN) at Byalalu, about 40 km from Bangalore.

“The health of the spacecraft is good and its vital functions are operating normally,” Satish added.

The terrain mapping camera onboard will continue to take pictures of the moon’s surface even as it revolves around its polar orbit.

Chandrayaan carries 11 scientific instruments, including six foreign payloads - two from the US, three from the European Space Agency (ESA) and one from Bulgaria. The remaining five are indigenously designed and developed by various centres of the state-run ISRO.

The spacecraft was blasted off Oct 22 onboard the 316-tonne Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) from the Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota spaceport, about 80 km north of Chennai.

Chandrayaan -1

A rocket carrying India's first lunar spacecraft was launched from the country's spaceport here early Wednesday, 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.
'The vehicle structure was altered to have bigger strap-on motors. The rocket is also padded up with additional thermal insulation,' George Koshy, project director

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