India determined to enter into space with Chandrayaan-1

The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 was launched 50 years back and since than the space region is ruled by only two countries, the United States and Russia. Now, to break down the sovereignty of those countries, India and China are coming up with their respective projects.

India on Wednesday has announced that it intends to explore the Moon and will send an unmanned mission there by 2008.

Chandrayaan-1, which literally means "Moon Craft", is an unmanned lunar probe by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and will be launched in the first half of 2008, Jitendranath Goswami, a scientist heading the project has announced.

According to Dr. Goswami, who is also a scientist with Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory, the date for ISRO’s unmanned mission is not finalized yet as an eclipse is predicted for February 2008. "The mission will leave just after the eclipse...but for sure it will leave in early 2008," Dr. Goswami told media persons on Friday.

The mission, which includes a lunar orbiter as well as an impacter, will be launched by a modified version of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, an expendable launch system operated by the ISRO.

The mission will explore the moon's physical, chemical and physio-chemical elements and its crater background. Telling more about Chandrayaan 1, Dr. Goswami said, that it is a remote sensing mission with the objective of micro logical, chemical and geological mapping, at a state-of-the-art resolution as compared to the previous and currently planned mission.

"This will be the first attempt to detect emission of low energy gamma rays from a planetary surface," he said.

Nearly Rs. 400-crore (US$83 million) remote sensing spacecraft will weigh 1304 kg. (590 kg. initial orbit mass and 504 kg. dry mass) and will carry high resolution remote sensing instruments for visible, near infrared, low and high X-ray frequencies. In its two years of time into space, it is projected to observe the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. The Polar Regions are of special interest.

Besides six ISRO payloads, the spacecraft will carry two research instrument payloads from NASA and Bulgaria. In his response to a query about collaboration with the US for the mission, Goswami replied that India looks at collaboration in the planetary missions and ISRO is open to such scientific collaborations.

"We cannot forget that India had few of its firsts due to the US...we had our first education TV channel because an American satellite was stationed over India," he explained.

Echoing the statement of Dr. Goswami, Dr. Raj Baldev, Cosmo Theorist from India, and head of SAROUL (Scientific Advance Research of Universe and Life) said, "It is wise to get the help of NASA and that shall be beneficial to both India and USA."

About the future plans, Dr. Goswami responded that Chandrayaan II could be a reality in 2011-12 and that would also be unmanned. "Before sending man we need to develop lot of technologies… For that instance, manned mission is just a thought," Goswami explained.