ISRO calls meet to analyse Chandrayaan data

Project director Mylswamy Annadurai said the command centre in Bangalore had been receiving a wealth of data ever since the spacecraft went into the mission mode last month,a lot of which was of the kind that had never been seen before.

He said an analysis of the data,which is already underway,was almost certain to throw new light on man’s understanding of the moon’s surface,its evolution and chemical composition,and also on the likelihood of presence of water. He said the images taken by the instruments on Chandrayaan were qualitatively much better,with a higher spectral and spatial resolution,than any received from other previous missions so far.

Scientists at the command centre were currently busy in the analysis of this data and trying to correctly interpret the likely implications. All these data and the results from it would be presented before the January 29 meeting for peer review and scientific assessment after which it would be made public.

Annadurai said scientific teams from all the six countries that have put up their payloads on Chandrayaan had confirmed their participation for the meeting. Besides,a number of other space scientists will be present as special invitees.

Meanwhile,the temperature inside the spacecraft,which had seen a significant rise in the early half of last month,has come back to normal with the spacecraft moving away from the close proximity to the sun that it had reached in December. All the instruments on board are performing completely according to expectations and sending back excellent data.