On the day of 22nd October 2008, history was created. It was India’s first mission to moon ‘Chandrayaan - 1’. It was launched from SDS SHAR, SriHariKota. It was the first Indian Lunar probe under the Chandrayaan program. It was launched by ISRO (Indian Space research Organization). This program operated till August 2009.
On 14th November 2008, the moon impact probe separated from the Chandrayaan orbiter at 14:36 UTC and struck the south pole in a controlled manner. Making India the fourth country in the world to place its flag insignia on the moon.
The total estimated cost for the project was 51 million USD (Rs 386 crores). The Rocket used for this mission was PSLV - XL, C11 and the total mission duration was planned for 2 years but it was completed in 10 months and 6 days.
The spacecraft was of 1380 kg in mass during launch and its dry mass was 560 kg and payload mass was 105 kg.
The mission was to survey the Umar surface over a 2 year period, to produce a complete map of chemical composition at a surface of 3 dimensional topography. The polar regions are of special interest as they might contain water, ice among its many achievements was the discovery of the widespread presence of water molecules in Lunar soil.
After almost a year, the orbiter started suffering from several technical issues including failure of the star tracker and poor thermal shielding; Chandrayaan 1 stopped communicating at about 20:00 UTC in August 2009. Shortly after which ISRO officially declared that the mission was over. The mission Chandrayaan was operated for 312 days as opposed to the intended two years, but the mission achieved most of its scientific objectives.
On July 2, 2015, NASA used a ground-based radar system to rebook Chandrayaan 1 in its Lunar orbit, more than seven years after its shut down.
The History behind this mission:
The Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced Chandrayaan 1 project on the course of his independence day speech on 15th August.
The objectives:
- To design, develop and launch an orbit spacecraft around the moon using an Indian made launch vehicle.
- To increase scientific knowledge.
- To conduct scientific experiments using instruments on the spacecraft which would yield data for ISRO and the government.
- To test the impact of a sub satellite on the surface of the moon as a fore runner for future Soft Handling missions.
The teams:
The mission was made successful through the following scientists:
- G. Madhavan Nair - Chairman, ISRO
- T. K. Alex - Director ISAC (ISRO satellite centre)
- Mylswamy Annadurai - Project Director Chandrayaan 1
- SK Shiv Kumar - Director telemetry, tracking and command network.
- M. Pitchaimani - Operating director Chandrayaan 1
- K. Radha Krishnan - Director VSSC
- Titendra Nath Goswami - Director of Physical, research lab and principle scientific investigator of Chandrayaan 1
- Madhavan Chandradathan - Head launch Authorization broad, Chandrayaan 1