India's Chandrayaan-1 On Its Way to the Moon

By Nancy Atkinson - October 22, 2008 at 12:54 PM UTC | Planetary Science
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[/caption] Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to the Moon, was successfully launched earlier this morning from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SHAR) in Sriharikota, India. The PSLV-C11 rocket lifted off at 02:52 Central European Summer Time (CEST). About 20 minutes later the spacecraft was , injected into a highly elongated orbit around the Earth. The spacecraft will reach the moon in about two weeks. It will take several days for the Chandrayaan-1 to reach its lunar transfer orbit, and then it will take about 5 days to reach the moon. Once the spacecraft is orbiting the moon, it will progressively lower its altitude through propulsive maneuvers to reach its final 100 km-high circular orbit.

[caption id="attachment_19945" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Chandrayaan-1 mission profile. Credit: ESA"]

[/caption] Chandrayaan-1 is a truly international mission, with payloads from Europe as well as the United States. NASA's contribution includes the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, designed to look for lunar mineral resources, and an instrument known as Mini-SAR, which will look for ice deposits in the moon's polar regions. Engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are also providing backup navigation assistance to the Indian Space Agency in Bangalore, India.

At the earliest opportunity, the spacecraft will eject the 'Moon Impact Probe' to provide information about the lunar surface. The mission will then continue from orbit, with remote-sensing studies carried out by its 11 scientific instruments. Three of these instruments were provided by Europe (UK, Germany, Sweden) through ESA.

Sources:

ESA,

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com