Indian Space Capabilities

[Sam Dhanraj]

Chandrayaan-1 Successfully Enters Lunar Orbit​

November 8, 2008


Chandrayaan-1, India’s first unmanned spacecraft mission to moon, entered lunar orbit today (November 8, 2008). This is the first time that an Indian built spacecraft has broken away from the Earth’s gravitational field and reached the moon. This historic event occurred following the firing of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s liquid engine at 16:51 IST for a duration of 817 seconds. The highly complex ‘lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre’ was performed from Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network at Bangalore.

Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu supported the crucial task of transmitting commands and continuously monitoring this vital event with two dish antennas, one measuring 18 m and the other 32 m.

Chandrayaan-1’s liquid engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an orbit around the moon. The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (periselene) lies at a distance of about 504 km from the moon’s surface while the farthest point (aposelene) lies at about 7502 km. Chandrayaan-1 takes about 11 hours to go round the moon once in this orbit.

The performance of all the systems onboard Chandrayaan-1 is normal. In the coming days, the height of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s orbit around the moon will be carefully reduced in steps to achieve a final polar orbit of about 100 km height from the moon’s surface. Following this, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) of the spacecraft will be released to hit the lunar surface. Later, the other scientific instruments will be turned ON sequentially leading to the normal phase of the mission.

It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was launched on October 22, 2008 by PSLV-C11 from India’s spaceport at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. As intended, PSLV placed the spacecraft in a highly oval shaped orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 255 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 22,860 km. In the past two weeks, the liquid engine of Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully fired five times at opportune moments to increase the apogee height, first to 37,900 km, then to 74,715 km, later to 164,600 km, after that to 267,000 km and finally to 380,000km, as planned. During this period, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), one of the eleven payloads (scientific instruments) of the spacecraft, was successfully operated twice to take the pictures, first of the Earth, and then moon.

With today’s successful manoeuvre, India becomes the fifth country to send a spacecraft to Moon. The other countries, which have sent spacecraft to Moon, are the United States, former Soviet Union, Japan and China. Besides, the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries, has also sent a spacecraft to moon.

Chandrayaan-1 Successfully Enters Lunar Orbit

 

[nitesh]

Chandrayaan-1 Successfully Enters Lunar Orbit

 

[Sam Dhanraj]

Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), one of the eleven payloads (scientific instruments) of the spacecraft, was successfully operated twice to take the pictures, first of the Earth,and then moon
Chandrayaan-1 Successfully Enters Lunar Orbit

Nitesh,

Your earlier post of the First Moon pictures seems to be correct..as this press article from ISRO confirms it...Not sure if thats the same image in your post. Will have to wait till its posted on ISRO website..

 

[p2prada]

Nitesh,

Your earlier post of the First Moon pictures seems to be correct..as this press article from ISRO confirms it...Not sure if thats the same image in your post. Will have to wait till its posted on ISRO website..

And the Chinese will say it is just some round cheese hanging in front of the camera using Bollywood special effects.

 

[nitesh]

And the Chinese will say it is just some round cheese hanging in front of the camera using Bollywood special effects.

Hey leave it, it is part of psy ops they always need to prove that they are great, you remember the chat between the premier and the astroaunts were released even before the launch

Read these

The Hindu : Front Page : “Everything went exactly as planned, and on dot”
The Hindu : Front Page : My heart skipped a beat or two, says Madhavan Nair
The Hindu : Front Page : “Chandrayaan has followed its schedule down to last millisecond”

and this one:

The Hindu : Front Page : India’s Moon mission a big success


A TV grab of the Moon sent by Chandrayaan-1 on November 4.

CHENNAI: Chandrayaan-1 has kept its rendezvous with the Moon. In a meticulously planned operation, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday accomplished the most crucial and critical manoeuvre of safely inserting Chandrayaan-1 into the lunar orbit.

This is the first time that an Indian-built spacecraft has broken away from the Earth’s gravitational field and reached the Moon. The spacecraft is now circling the Moon over its polar regions with a periselene (nearest point from the moon’s surface) of 504 km and an aposelene (farthest point) of 7,502 km.

The ISRO flawlessly executed this highly complex manoeuvre by radioing commands from the Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC), Bangalore, to the engine on board Chandrayaan-1, which fired for 817 seconds from 4.51 p.m.

ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair called it “a fantastic achievement” and “a great moment for the country.” He described the manoeuvre as “the most crucial moment in the whole mission … We have done it so precisely that as far as I know nobody else has got this kind of precision… Our precision proves that in competence, our scientists and technologists are quite ahead of the global standards. With this, we have achieved more than 90 per cent of the main objectives of the mission.”

M. Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan-1, said: “Today we graduated into a real lunar mission. Everybody is thrilled. This is the first significant milestone in putting Chandrayaan-1 into the lunar orbit.”

Mr. Annadurai said there were more steps to perform in the mission: progressively reducing Chandrayaan-1’s orbit to the final circular orbit of 100 km above the moon on November 15. “The first indications from the spacecraft show that everything has gone on the dot.”



The historic event took place after Chandrayaan-1 reached the vicinity of the Moon and commands were radioed to it for reducing its velocity by rotating the spacecraft in the opposite direction. In space parlance, it is called retro-firing. When Chandrayaan-1’s velocity was reduced by 366.8 metres a second, it was captured by the Moon’s gravity and safely ensconced in the lunar orbit.

S.K. Shivakumar, Director, ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network, Bangalore, where the SCC, the nerve-centre of the operations is located, called it “a wonderful feeling.”

Commands were being given to Chandrayaan-1 from the 32-metre and 18-metre antennas, and “their tracking of the spacecraft is excellent.” The signals received from the spacecraft were good too, Mr. Shivakumar said.

S. Ramakrishnan, Director (Projects), Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, applauded “the precision with which Chandrayaan-1 was inserted into the lunar orbit.” Had the slightest mistake been made, Chandrayaan-1 “would have skipped and gone away.”

 

[nitesh]

 

[nitesh]

The Hindu : Front Page : Chandrayaan orbital: height reduced
CHENNAI: After successfully accomplishing the most crucial and tricky manoeuvre of safely inserting Chandrayaan-1 into the lunar orbit on Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organisation on Sunday executed the first manoeuvre of reducing the orbital height of the spacecraft around the moon. While on Saturday, Chandrayaan-1 reached the lunar orbit with an aposelene (farthest point from the moon) of 7,502 km and a periselene (nearest point from the moon) of 504 km, the periselene was reduced to 200 km on Sunday. The aposelene continues at 7,500 km. The periselene was reduced by giving commands to the engine on board Chandrayaan-1 to fire for about a minute from 8.03 p.m.
More manoeuvres

Three more manoeuvres of reducing both the aposelene and periselene will be done in the coming days. This includes the manoeuvre of putting Chandrayaan-1 in the final circular orbit of 100 km above the moon on November 15. After this is done, ISRO will command the spacecraft to eject its Moon Impact Probe on the same day.

The Terrain Mapping Camera, an Indian scientific instrument, has already been switched on. It has taken clear pictures of the earth and the moon.

 

[Vinod2070]

^^What was that!

 

[nitesh]

what you guys say about this now

I say go go go

ISRO to develop Sun mission 'Aditya', says Nair - Yahoo! India News

ISRO to develop Sun mission 'Aditya', says Nair

Mon, Nov 10 01:25 PM

Bangalore, Nov 10 (ANI): After the success of Chandrayaan -1, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has conceptually developed a Sun mission called 'Aditya'.

Talking to ANI here, ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair, said the success of Chandrayaan -1 has boosted the confidence of ISRO scientists to look beyond the moon.

"Aditya has been approved and its operations would begin soon. Sun mission is very critical and one of its kind in the global space research," Nair added.

He further revealed that ISRO is also developing a fast track satellite to augment rural development and the Indian space sphere. The operations will continue for the next one-and-half years.

Launched on October 22, by PSLV-C11, the Chandrayaan-1 put India in an elite lunar club comprising Russia, US, Japan, China and European Space Agency.

The Chandrayaan-1 mission intends to put an unmanned spacecraft into an orbit around the moon and to perform remote sensing of the nearest celestial neighbour for about two years with eleven payloads. (ANI)

 

[nitesh]

ISRO Planning To Launch Satellite To Study The Sun

 

[Vinod2070]

So the focus of ISRO is moving from being just "utilitarian" earlier to also include exploration of the deep space.

Good luck.

 

[nitesh]

There is lot of excitement for next decade as we are going to see chandrayaan 2 mars mission, Indian in space and then Indian on moon too. Hope everything goes well.

 

[p2prada]

^^What was that!

Spam. Sade I say, SADE.

 

[p2prada]

So the focus of ISRO is moving from being just "utilitarian" earlier to also include exploration of the deep space.

Good luck.

The satellite will not go close to the sun. A mars mission is better. The distance between the sun and earth is 150million kms. Earth to mars is 60million.

 

[Vinod2070]

The satellite will not go close to the sun. A mars mission is better. The distance between the sun and earth is 150million kms. Earth to mars is 60million.

Yes, the link does mention that the satellite will be in the NEO of 600 KM. It will be dedicated for solar study, though. Should not be too expensive.

The projected cost of the satellite is approximately Rs. 50 crore.

"We want to cut costs by avoiding a dedicated launch. With ISRO's multiple launching capability, Aditya could go as a co-passenger in one of the many launches scheduled for the next four years," said Prof. Sridharan. "The cost of the instrument can also be reduced by nearly a factor of 10 by using screened industrial grade components. We do not need this satellite for more than two years - it would have gathered an enormous amount of data in this span of time."