 As the moon
mission began processing from the realms of imagination to reality,the
long awaited clearance of project from the Indian Government for a
period of five years took shape into a cuboid shaped spacecraft –the
Chandrayaan
Indian
Space Research Organization(ISRO) announced that it is all set to
launch the country’s first unmanned mission to the moon and unveiled
the spacecraft fully loaded with its six Indian and five foreign
scientific instruments at its satellite centre on Wednesday 22,2008.The
dream that was nurtured long back in 1962 from a small village church
in kerala turned into a cuboid shaped spacecraft weighing 1,400kg
carrying scientific instruments and build from aluminium honeycomb
material,powered by a single solar panel generating 700watts and has a
back-up lithium ion battery.Chandrayan’s thermal subsystems consist of
paints,tapes,multilayer insulation blanket,optical solar reflectors and
temperature controllers,which ensure that the craft’s temperature
remains within acceptable limits.Lunar laser ranging instrument will
help keep the spacecraft in proper orientation above the moon.The craft
will be carried in PSLV-C11,an uprated PSLV rocket consisting of a
four-stage propulsion system that carry solid and liquid fuel alternatively.
Stages of the Mission
· The spacecraft will first move towards a highly elliptical orbit with its furthest point being 23,000 km from Earth.
· It will be the taken into two more elliptical orbits-at 37,000 km and 73,000 km respectively.
· Then
the craft’s liquid apogee motor(LAM) will take it to a height of about
3,87,00 km from Earth.Here,it will approach the Moon’s north pole at a
safe distance of about a few hundred km.
· Once in the vicinity of the moon,Lam will fire again to reduce the speed of the aircraft.
· The altitude of the spacecraft will be gradually reduced until it reaches its final orbit about 100 km above the Moon.
Goals of the Mission
Everybody
in the world is trying to find out new things on Moon.There are many
unsolved problems regarding planetary exploration or even how planets
were formed.Though NASA has been working on moon habitat and from many
years starting from Neil Armstrong to recent astronauts have left their
footprints on Moon still adding new search results regarding space
research and moon would add feather to Indian research.Other way round
its difficult to predict whether to cross China in the long run of
space research who are astronishingly showing their prominence is a big
question.
Without
going into complex reason behind the launch of this expensive
spacecraft lets have a look at the goals of the mission from the
viewpoint of a common man:
· Prepare a 3D atlas using terrain mapping camera of both the near and far side of the Moon for a deeper understanding.
· Conduct
chemical & mineralogical mapping using hyper spectral imager of the
entire lunar surface to ascertain the distribution of natural resources
on the lunar surface.
· Search for helium-3,considered among the cleanest fuels known.
· Search
for water ice and study lunar rocks.The hunt for water is significant
as ISRO hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a manned lunar landing in
the 2020s.
Moon
is believed to contain 5 million tones of Helium3 compared to that of
Earth which is only 15 tonnes,so it this wonderful fuel can be detected
it can solve the energy problems of human for atleast next 8000
years.Whether Moon is human residable or not is uncertain but if Helium-3 can be detected and put to use then Chandrayaan will truly acoomplish the Moon mission and India would create history.
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QS .. oi chobi ta ki ??????? 