Chandrayan
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Chandrayan I (Chandra=Moon, yan=Ship) is the name for a mission of the Indian space agencies to send an unmanned spacecraft to the Moon which will then take a polar orbit around. The spacecraft will be launched by a modified version of India's indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
The remote sensing satellite will weigh 1050 kg (523 kg initial orbit mass and 440 kg dry mass) and carries high resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, soft and hard X-ray frequencies. During two years, it is supposed to survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. Especially the polar regions are of interest, as they might contain water ice.
In September 2004, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced in a press statement that planning has now made enough progress that they are confident that the mission will take place in 2007 or 2008.
They estimate the cost to be only INR 3.8 billion (US$ 83 million). The idea of a manned mission had been ruled out as considered to be too costly (INR 100 billion = US$ 2.2 billion).
The mission includes cooperation with other space agencies such as NASA and ESA, including the flight of spare SMART-1 instruments.
External links
- Chrandrayaan-1 Announcement of Opportunity (http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan-1/announcement.htm) and home page (http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan-1/) from ISRO
- European Space Agency to cooperate with India's first lunar mission (http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMRXIRMD6E_index_0.html)
