I.S.R.O. sends first spacecraft to moon

R. Satyanarayana

Sriharikota (A.P.), Oct 22 (PTI) India Wednesday became
the sixth nation to launch a moon mission when indigenously
built P.S.L.V.-C11 rocket blasted off from the spaceport here
carrying with it Chandrayaan-I, which will map the lunar
surface.

Indian Space Research Organisation's (I.S.R.O.)
home-grown rocket P.S.L.V.-C11 lifted off at 6:22 a.m.
(I.S.T.) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre taking the
spacecraft beyond the thick dark cloud cover over this coastal
town.

After 18.2 minutes, I.S.R.O.'s warhorse rocket had
injected Chandrayaan-I, its maiden moon mission, in the earth
orbit.

With the launch, India joined the elite club of moon
faring nations -- the U.S., Russia, European Space Agency,
China and Japan.

"The launch was perfect and precise. The satellite has
been placed in the earth orbit.

"With this, we have completed the first leg of the
mission and it will take 15 days to reach the lunar orbit,"
I.S.R.O. Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said.

President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani congratulated space
scientists on the successful launch.

Chandrayaan-I is carrying an Indian flag which will be
placed on the lunar surface when the Moon Impactor Probe lands
on the moon during the course of the two-year mission.

"Our baby is on the way to the moon," Chandrayaan-I
spacecraft director Mylswamy Annadurai said after the
satellite was injected in the Transfer Orbit with a perigee
of about 250 k.m. and apogee of about 23,000 k.m., in about 19
minutes.

About 18 minutes after liftoff, Chandrayaan-I separated
from the rocket and began circling the earth in an elliptical
orbit powered by its own engines.

At opportune moments, space scientists tracking the
mission will fire the spacecraft's Liquid Apogee Motors
(L.A.M.) repeatedly to take it into more elliptical orbits.

Subsequently, the L.A.M. would be again fired to take the
spacecraft till it reaches 387,000 k.m. from earth which is
called the Lunar Transfer Orbit (L.T.O.).

After Chandrayaan-1 reaches the L.T.O., its L.A.M. would
be fired again so as to slow down the spacecraft sufficiently
to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an
elliptical orbit. The next step would be to reduce the height
of the spacecraft orbit around the moon in various steps.

After some more procedures, Chandrayaan-1's orbit would
be finally lowered to its intended 100 k.m. height from the
lunar surface, which is expected to take place around November
8.

Later, the Moon Impact Probe (M.I.P.) would be ejected
from Chandrayaan-1 in a chosen area following which the
cameras and other payloads would be turned on and thoroughly
tested, marking the operational phase of the mission.

The M.I.P. will not survive the fall but demonstrate
technologies for a future soft-landing mission. During its
crash on the lunar surface, the M.I.P. will send high
resolution images of the moon and also analyse terrain.

Of the 11 instruments carried by the satellite, five are
Indian, three are from the European Space Agency, two from the
U.S. -- including a radar that can search for ice under lunar
poles -- and one from Bulgaria.

Beyond 3-D mapping the moon and scanning for mineral
deposits, the mission will test systems for a future moon
landing. PTI SKU
SHN