Shillong, Jan 04: Scientists can now extend the
duration of India`s maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-I beyond
its planned two-year period.
The precise launch and lunar orbit insertion of
Chandrayaan-I has given space scientists the leverage to
extend the mission life of the spacecraft orbiting the moon
at an altitude of 100 km.
"The spacecraft has about 183 kg fuel onboard and we
are looking at a two-year plus mission life," S K Shivakumar,
Director ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network
(ISTRAC) said at the 96th Indian Science Congress here.
Principal scientists involved in all the 10
experiments onboard the spacecraft are meeting in Bangalore on
January 29 to discuss the initial findings of the moon
mission.
Orbital manoeuvres need to be carried out on the
spacecraft once every 28 days to ensure that it stays in the
designated 100 km circular orbit and does not go astray.
"About three kg fuel is used when onboard motors are
fired for carrying out the orbital manoeuvre," said
Shivakumar, whose team has been monitoring the spacecraft
ever since it`s launch on October 22 last year.
Chandrayaan-I was launched with an orbital accuracy of
five km making India the first country to achieve such a
precise maiden mission, ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said.
The Chandrayaan-I mission has been sending
"unprecedented" amount of data and scientists are busy
analysing it.
At the January 29 meeting they would get an
opportunity for cross-verification of the data gathered by
their experiment with those generated by other instruments.
"The cross verification will lead to better
understanding of the lunar surface," Principal Scientist of
Chandrayaan-I mission J N Goswami told a news agency.
The moon mineralogy mapper (M3), a scientific
instrument of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) onboard the spacecraft, has found
iron-bearing minerals on the lunar surface.
M3 is one of the 10 instruments onboard the unmanned
moon voyager conducting experiments while it orbits over the
earth`s natural satellite next two years.
Five instruments were indigenously built by the Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO), while the remaining six
experiments are of foreign origin, including three from the
European Space Agency, two from NASA and one from Bulgaria.
M3 instrument of National Aeronautics and Space
Administration has beamed back images of the Orientale Basin
on the western limb of the moon.
An analysis of the images indicates abundance of
iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene, said Carle Pieters, a
senior scientist of US-based Brown University and principal
investigator for the M3 experiment.
"The image is from a single wavelength of light that
contains thermal emission, providing a new level of detail on
the form and structure of the region`s surface," she said.
The images were captured by the M3 during the
commissioning phase of Chandrayaan-1, launched on October 22,
as the spacecraft orbited the moon at an altitude of 100 kms.
Bureau Report
