The race for the moon is hotting up. Recently, China and Japan successfully launched their moon missions — which are essentially moon survey satellites. India is also expected to send its first moon mission, along similar lines. Called Chandrayaan-1, it should take off in early 2008.India, in fact, is taking the ‘business of the moon’ very seriously. On November 12, during the prime minister’s visit to Russia, the Indian Space Research Organisation and Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roskosmos signed an agreement for Chandrayaan-2, a joint lunar research and exploration mission.

India’s second moon mission is expected to take place during 2010-2011. The roles for both the parties have also clearly been spelled out. Chandrayaan-2 mission will consist of the spacecraft and a landing platform with the moon rover. The platform with the rover will detach itself after the spacecraft reaches its orbit above the moon and lands on lunar soil. ISRO will be responsible for the orbiter and Russia, for the moon rover.

The rover would remain functional for a month. It will be programmed to pick up soil and rock samples and would immediately carry out its chemical analysis. This valuable data will, in turn, be transmitted to the spacecraft orbiting above the moon. The weight of the rover would depend on the nature of the landing envisaged. It could be anywhere between 30 kg to 100 kg.

Incidentally, Chandrayaan-1 would also be carrying equipment called the moon impact probe. This technological forerunner will weigh 29-kg and would be placed like a hat on top of the main Chandrayaan-1 module. It would be released to crash-land on the moon when the craft will start revolving in an orbit 100 km away from the moon. The MIP will have three instruments. Its mass spectrometer will sense the moon’s atmospheric constituents as it keeps falling for 18 minutes and crashes on the moon. Its altimeter will measure the instantaneous altitude during its descent. Its video-imaging system will look at the moon from a close proximity. The data collected will be of immense help to plan for the rover landing of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

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