Many critical components of Chandrayaan-1 were developed at city’s ISRO centre

When PSLV-C11 blasts off on October 22 from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh with Chandrayaan-1, India’s first lunar mission, on board will be the dreams and efforts of a clutch of scientists from Ahmedabad’s Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Several highly critical components for the mission were developed at ISRO, Ahmedabad.

The mission will last about two years and aim to unravel the mysteries of the moon, which still remains much of an enigma for the scientific community.

Questions relating to the origin and evolution of the moon, the presence of water, the mineralogical composition and the quantification of helium-3 (a clean fuel for the future nuclear fusion reactors) still pose a puzzle to the scientists, and ISRO envisages finding answers to these questions. For this, Chandrayaan-1 will use its high resolution remote sensing sensors to view the moon in the visible, near infrared, microwave and X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Chandrayaan-1 will carry 11 payloads (scientific instruments). Of these, five are India’s very own, three are from the European Space Agency (ESA), two are from NASA and one is from Bulgaria.

The Indian payloads include the Terrain Mapping Camera, Hyperspectral Imager, High Energy X-ray Spectrometer, Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) and a 29 kg Moon Impact Probe (MIP).

While the LLRI will provide the necessary data for determining the accurate altitude of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft above the lunar surface, the MIP will pave way for future soft landing missions on the moon by demonstrating the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location.

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