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A Look at the Chandrayaan-2 Payloads September 12, 2010

Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2, Indian Space Research Organization, Roscosmos , add a comment

Last week, the scientific payloads that’ll be on board the orbiter and rover of the Chandrayaan-2 mission were announced!

Following the accomplishments of its historic first orbiter mission, India’s ISRO is partnering with Russia’s Roscosmos on a combined orbiter-lander-rover mission slated for 2013.

As it was NASA’a M3 Mapper and Mini-RF on board the Chandrayaan-1 that made two of the great lunar water discoveries (molecules in soil and massive amounts of water ice at the north pole), one of these 7 instruments (as reported by the Times of India) could very well be the one to make the next big lunar splash…

Orbiter

1. Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer and Solar X-ray monitor (XSM).

2. L and S band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).

“…for probing the first few tens of metres of the lunar surface for the presence of different constituents, including water ice. SAR is expected to provide further evidence confirming the presence of water ice below the shadowed regions of the moon…” – “Payloads for Chandrayaan-2 finalised, to carry 7 instruments”, The Times of India

3. Imaging IR Spectrometer (IIRS).

“…for mapping of lunar surface over a wide wavelength range for the study of minerals, water molecules and hydroxyl present…”- The Times of India

4. Neutral Mass Spectrometer (ChACE-2)

“…to carry out a detailed study of the lunar exosphere.” -The Times Of India

5. Terrain Mapping Camera-2 (TMC-2)

“…for preparing a three-dimensaional map essential for studying the lunar mineralogy and geology.” -The Times of India

Rover

1. Laser induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS).

2. Alpha Particle Induced X-ray Spectroscope (APIXS).

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It’s interesting to note that, unlike on the Chandrayaan-1, none of these seven instruments are international:  they’re all ISRO, even on the Russian-built rover.

A quote from a September 5th interview with former ISRO chairman Srinivas Laxman, also from the India Times:

“A significant aspect of Chandrayaan-2 is that the orbiter, unlike in Chandrayaan-1, does not have any foreign payloads even though NASA and the European Space Agency showed interest. Is there any reason why foreign payloads have been removed?

As per the present plan we do not have any weight in the orbiter for foreign payloads. We were keen on giving an opportunity to our scientists.”- “‘We’re Launching Chandrayaan-2 for a Total Coverage of the Moon’”, The Times of India

Also of note, four of the seven instruments have connections to either helium-3 or water, which look to both be potentially valuable resources.

Is India getting serious about a headstart on them?

NASA Images Lunokhod 2 Rover March 19, 2010

Posted by Nick Azer in : Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter, Roscosmos, rover, Russia , add a comment

NASA’s busy Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has solved a longstanding mystery: it has found the final resting place of the russian Lunokhod 2 rover.

The Lunokhod 2′s 37-kilometer journey ended after a trek through a small crater ended up covering its arrays with soil. Canadian professor Phil Stooke has noted this image as a discovery of the final resting place, though apparently there is some Russian dissension on the idea it was ever lost at all. Regardless, it’s exciting to have such great images of important historical artifacts on the lunar surface :)

Besides the Lunokhod, the LRO has imaged many of the Russian craft left on the Moon—and not to mention, the Apollo 11 lander and other significant American sites (bye bye, hoax theories?).

There’s tons of goodies to be had in the LRO image library, of all spectrums, so check it out :) Towards the end of the mission, or perhaps sooner, I’ll be recapping some of the best highlights of the LRO’s findings right here.

India Launches Chandrayaan 1 Moon Mission (News) October 22, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Base Race, Bulgaria, Chandrayaan, European Space Agency, Helium-3, Indian Space Research Organization, Japan, Kaguya, Roscosmos, rover, Russia, selenography , add a comment

Today, India’s Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched it’s first lunar mission, the Chandrayaan 1.

An unmanned lunar explorer (a la Japan‘s Kaguya), the Chandrayaan-1 (which is “moon craft” in Sanskrit) is set to map lunar topography in 3D, creating (as the ISRO puts it) a “3D atlas” and notably, chemical mapping of the lunar surface.

While I haven’t found any specific references to helium-3 in any Indian or other documentation of the Chandrayaan project, that prominent “chemical mapping” goal suggests that, like Russia, China, NASA, and others, India is seriously interested in the resource potential of the Moon.

The craft is carrying scientific payloads for six other organizations (check that link for specific pages for each one), including NASA, Europe’s ESA, and Bulgaria’s Space Research Institute.

This story got some big media play in the form of a huge front-page Drudge Report splash, with a huge picture of the Moon in the place usually reserved for the likes of Obama and McCain. Here’s that spectacular image (which ran with an “INDIA TO THE MOON!” headline):

I’m a little surprised at the high-profile coverage, as this Indian mission isn’t a whole lot different than JAXA‘s, which didn’t appear to get quite the same sort of media push. I think this speaks to the sort of excitement the Base Race can generate, especially as the significant 2010-2020 decade pulls closer (and as things domestically get more and more grim in the meantime).

The Chandrayaan-1 mission is expected to last for two years, with Chandrayaan-2, a joint Indo-Russian moon rover venture, shooting for 2011.

"The Future of Urban Planning": The Moon? September 5, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : China, Fusion Power, Helium-3, infrastructure, lunar land use planning, NASA, Roscosmos , 2comments

I, your beloved blogger, am a recent graduate with my Bachelor’s in Urban Planning, and part of why I started this blog (despite having a rather different background than your typical space enthusiast) is that I maintain that lunar colonization is, in fact, urban planning. My argument being, that the Moon’s surface is now land for all intents and purposes, and therefore any colony/mine, infrastructure, or other utilization of its surface is land use; and land use planning is the core of urban planning. NASA, Roscosmos, the CNSA, etc. are all well into programs to complete substantial built environments on the Moon by 2030, and so this has become a timely subject.

Once in a while, I find that I am (in fact) not the only one who thinks about these things, and here’s a case in point I came across today.

“In the future, these questions will likely be posed for cities that exist on the moon or Mars… You might think that such a city is unrealistic, but NASA has been planning a “city in the sky” for years.”
-”HowStuffWorks” article on Urban Planning by William Harris

A Wired.com article chronicles NASA’s ‘recurring dream’, with the first substantial and ‘modern’ looks (that included thoughts on industrialization of the moon, a key to current efforts) coming in 1972 and 1975.

Check out that HowStuffWorks article linked above, and keep an eye here for more and more content regarding just what the planning topics are for moon colonization in the next 10 years (the early phase) and beyond. :)

Russian/European Joint, Manned Spacecraft Design Unveiled (News) July 24, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Ares I, Ares V, cooperation, Current News, European Space Agency, Orion (craft), RKK Energia, Roscosmos , add a comment

The replacement for the oft-used Russian Soyuz craft was unveiled today, and it is a joint project by the European Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency(Roscosmos):

Designed by Russian space firm RKK Energia, this is a craft planned to be used for lunar missions, effectively being the counterpart to NASA’s Ares/Orion lunar-mission tag team (which I profiled briefly here at Luna C/I back in May). In NASA’s case, the Ares is the launch module and the Orion the manned portion; this new craft is a manned craft, with the launch vehicle undetermined and (as noted in the linked BBC news article) possibly being either an entirely new vehicle or a modified existing Russian rocket.

The Russian-European plans to collaborate are not a set-in-stone agreement, and so the ESA does have a backup plan to continue should the partnership with Roscosmos fall through. Still, it’s promising to see signs of this sort of high-level collaboration working, as opposed to, say, tense and outright competition that could lead to cynical (perhaps silly?) ‘war in space’ scenarios. In my view, if there’s a time for humanity to start moving on from the more petty social-geopolitical problems of Earth, this is it. Do we really need to go start churning out terms like “lunapolitical conflict”?

But, for the time being, we have developments like this tentative Euro-Russian agreement (and other cooperation efforts) to nudge things towards what I see, at least for now, as a positive direction.