India's Chandrayaan Flags the Moon November 16, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan-1, Current News, Helium-3, Indian Space Research Organization, lander, Peak of Eternal Light, Shackleton, Youtube , 1 comment so far
I’ve been flagging “Chandrayaan” on a lot of my moon posts as of late, but now the Chandrayaan-1 has done me one better, flagging something itself: the Moon.
The craft’s Moon Impact Probe, carrying the Indian Tricolour (pictured above) on its side, landed on the Moon on Friday, making India the fifth (or fourth; videos seems to state fourth, but that linked article from the India Times states fifth) world entity (after the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the 17-nation ESA) to reach the surface of the Moon.
That is a picture the Moon Impact Probe took before impact (from the India Times); the prode landed just 32km from the all-important Shackleton Crater near the South Pole, a very likely location for a future full-fledged colony or colonies (due to its rim being a Peak of Eternal Light, a.k.a. eternal solar power and other benefits). So its likely that future colonists (robotic or otherwise) will come across, or at least take field trips to, this Indian tricolor in the future :)
Below is a great video from CCTV on the Probe’s landing, which rather interestingly, also confirms the active Indian interest in helium-3 (something not mentioned in the official ISRO Moon Impact Probe page):
Chandrayaan-1 Payload Feature #2: Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA) November 13, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-1 Payload Features, Helium-3, Indian Space Research Organization, solar wind, Sweden , add a commentToday is the second in a series of features on each of India‘s recently-launched Chandrayaan-1‘s scientific payloads.
The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA). Today is the first look at one of the foriegn payloads: the Swedish Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA).
Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA)
SARA is a device mainly to study the magnetosphere (or in the case of the Moon, the lack thereof) and solar wind interactions with the lunar surface.
Developed through the ESA in collaboration with the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and the Indian ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, the payload itself is of Swedish development while the data processing unit is Indian.
Solar wind experiments were peformed on the lunar surface during many of the Apollo missions (11, 12, 14, 15, and 16); they analyzed the chemical components of lunar surface in relation to the solar wind, and found that the lunar surface had been enriched with atomic nuclei, including helium-3, a major motivator behind this current base race.
While details on the SARA’s mission are vague, the impression that I get is that the SARA’s additional solar wind analysis, going by the above connection between solar wind and the all-important helium-3, could yield interesting information regarding the chemical composition of the moon, possibly for mining purposes (helium and otherwise). So, perhaps, the result of this seemingly unassuming device could end up being commercially significant.
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Check back within the next couple of days for the next feature, on another of the Indian payloads, as well as for any other updates on the moon mission’s progress that may come along :). You can find the first payload feature (and all the features as they’ll be posted) here.
Chandrayaan-1 Payload Spotlight #1: Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) November 9, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-1 Payload Features, Chang'e, European Space Agency, Indian Space Research Organization, Kaguya, Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter, NASA, selenography , add a commentToday is the first in a series of features on each of India‘s recently-launched Chandrayaan-1‘s scientific payloads.
As I cover each of the eleven payloads in individual posts over the next few weeks, I’m going to alternate between the Indian and foreign payloads.Without further ado, here’s your spotlight on the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC).
Terrain Mapping Camera
An Indian instrument, the first payload being featured here was also the first one to be tested.
It’s mostly as it sounds: a high-resolution camera that can take black and white photographs of the lunar surface (with a 5m spatial resolution–”the ability to distinguish between two closely spaced objects on an image“–in 20km swaths[PDF] ), with the intent to map the entire topography of the moon (including the dark side and the poles) at that 5m resolution; creating the most high-resolution, detailed map of the lunar surface to date. Such maps exist of Mars, but not of the Moon.
NASA’s Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission set for next year will have similar, if more powerful, camera and mapping systems. These kinds of maps will clearly be useful for the planning stages of the eventual lunar colonies and for other efforts.
The power of the TMC could well be enough to finally settle one thing for NASA ahead of time, though: it could photograph the Apollo and other NASA craft on the Moon’s surface, hopefully putting all those conspiracy theories to rest. :)
Here’s a picture from the ISRO of the TMC itself:
And, last but not least, one of the test images the camera took of Earth (high resolution here):
For every technical detail you ever wanted to know about the TMC, see this PDF.
Check back within the next couple of days for the next feature, on one of the Chandrayaan-1′s foreign payloads, as well as for any other updates on the moon mission’s progress that may come along :)
Video: India's Chandrayaan-1 Moon Orbiter November 3, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan-1, European Space Agency, Indian Space Research Organization, Youtube , 2commentsBelow is a neat video from the ESA (European Space Agency) on India‘s recently launched moon mission, the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter.
The ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) itself has a 30-minute video online about the Chandrayaan-1, as well, so there’s plenty of video to go around to get caught up on India’s hip moon mission :)
Chandrayaan-1 Update: Terrain Mapping Tested November 2, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan-1, Indian Space Research Organization, selenography , add a comment
Click that image above for the whopping full-size image of Earth that the recently launched Indian lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 took with one of its 11 payloads, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC).
Check out the press release for the official take, as well as these neat articles. This was a test of the TMC, which is one of five Indian payloads on the Chandrayaan-1 (the other six being international, including two through NASA).
I’m going to be doing a series of individual spotlights on all eleven payloads as the Chandrayaan-1 makes its way out of its current Earth orbit and towards the Moon, so keep an eye here for the first installment of that very soon :)