Chandrayaan-1
Chandrayaan -1 ( Hindi: च्हन्द्रयान, moon vehicle ", Hindi Chandra for the Moon, yaan for car, vehicle ) is a spacecraft of the Indian space agency ISRO, which started on 22 October 2008 to the moon and should revolve around him at least two years to under others to search for water ice. This is the first mission of India, which has gone beyond Earth orbit. Your goal is to test and improve the technological capacity of India in space and the acquisition of scientific information from the lunar surface. Then there was also a hard impacting daughter probe used, which took during its fall to the lunar surface measurement data. The total cost of the mission is estimated at about 80 million U.S. dollars, or 64 million euros; so should Chandrayaan- 1, the previously cheapest moon mission.
On August 28, 2009 at 20:00 UTC clock of contact was lost with the probe. She was by then 312 days in space and had orbited the moon more than 3,400 times.
Technology
The probe has a cubic shape with an edge length of about 1.5 meters and weighed at the start of 1304 kg, the empty weight about 440 kg and the mass after injection into lunar orbit was 590 kg. The construction is based on the flight-proven IRS Earth observation satellites.
The energy does a solar panel that produces 750 watts and a lithium- ion battery used for energy storage. The probe has a drive system which burns fuel and two is used for the pivoting in the Moon orbit and for attitude control. The spacecraft is three-axis stabilized and makes use of attitude control jets and gyroscopes. Go to navigation star sensors, accelerometers, and a Inertial Measurement Unit can be used. Communication with the remote control is performed in the S band, the scientific data are transmitted in X-band.
Moon Impact sample
In addition, the 29 kg heavy Lander Moon Impact Probe ( MIP) was on board, broke up at the beginning of the mission in 100 km altitude from the orbiter to reach the lunar surface. They did not have a landing engine and therefore hard hit on the moon on. As payload, the probe carrying a mass spectrometer, a video camera and a radar altimeter. The exterior of the impact probe was painted on the sides with the Indian national colors.
See also: List of artificial objects on the Moon
Instruments
The scientific payload of the spacecraft has a mass of 55 kilograms, and includes both Indian and by NASA and the European Space Agency ( ESA) provided instruments. In addition, a Bulgarian instrument on board.
Functioning of the mission
The spacecraft was launched on 22 October 2008 at 00:52 UTC clock with a modified PSLV rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the southeast coast of India. The launch vehicle placed Chandrayaan -1 in a 240 × 36,000 km Geotransferorbit from. After a 5.5 -day transfer to the Moon, the probe entered an initially 1000 km high, nearly circular orbit around the moon. The height of the orbit was then lowered for testing the probe to 200 km. Finally took Chandrayaan -1 on 12 November 2008 a 100 km high circular polar orbit a work. In it, she lays a lunar orbit back in about two hours.
On 14 November 2008, the birthday of former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru († 1964 ), under which India's space program was initiated, landed the Moon Impact test on the moon. 14:36 UTC clock, the lander had separated from the mother probe and slow them down with small retro rockets. 15:01 UTC clock struck after the controlled crash near the lunar south pole on the crater Shackleton. During the crash, they measured the amount of waste, made close-ups of the lunar surface and analyzed the extremely thin atmosphere. The data obtained were sent for temporary storage of the orbiter and to assist in the preparation of a future moon landing.
Chandrayaan -1 should work at least two years in the lunar orbit and transmit data back to Earth.
Successor
For 2016, the start of the successor, Chandrayaan -2 is planned. This is also provided as a lunar orbiter, but should additionally carry a rover.