Chandrayaan-1
- India’s first mission to Moon, was launched successfully on October 22, 2008 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon. The spacecraft carried 11 scientific instruments built in India, USA, UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.
- After the successful completion of all the major mission objectives, the orbit has been raised to 200 km during May 2009. The satellite made more than 3400 orbits around the moon and the mission was concluded when the communication with the spacecraft was lost on August 29, 2009.
India’s First Foray To The Moon
- Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924-2018) announced India’s moon mission in his Independence Day speech in 2003. This would be India’s first foray outside Earth’s gravitational pull and the most challenging task undertaken by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) until then.
- Five years after Vajpayee’s announcement, on October 22, 2008 a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) blasted off from Isro’s launch site at Sriharikota, beginning Chandrayaan-1’s journey to the moon. The PSLV initially placed Chandrayaan-1 on a high elliptical orbit around Earth. Over the next three weeks, the spacecraft carried out some highly complex, extremely precise manoeuvres to finally orbit the Moon.
Chandrayaan-2
- It was an Indian mission to send an orbiter, lander, and rover to the Moon. The three vehicles launched as one combined spacecraft in July 2019 to lunar orbit, and the lander, carrying the rover, attempted but failed to touch down in the Moon’s southern hemisphere. The orbiter continues to study the Moon from above.
- The mission builds on ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter, which launched in October 2008 and operated for 10 months. Chandrayaan-2 features improved instruments and new technologies intended for future planetary missions. The orbiter is planned to operate for seven years, while the lander and rover were expected to survive one lunar daytime period had they successfully landed.
- The lander was named Vikram, after Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of India’s space program. It would have landed near the Moon’s south pole, at a latitude of about 70 degrees south. The mission cost approximately 603 Rs crore ($87 million).
It all started with a bullock cart. In the early days of ISRO, scientists used to transport their equipment on bullock carts. They would also use bicycles and rickshaws to get around. But they had big dreams. They wanted to put India in the space race.
