10.22.08
Chandrayaan-1, the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) first deep space mission, successfully launched on October 22 on an ambitious two-year expedition to study the moon's landscape. The unmanned lunar orbiter launched at 6:20 a.m. local time (8:50 p.m. ET) from the Sriharikota space center in southern India.
Chandrayaan-1, which means "moon craft" in ancient Sanskrit, will take high-resolution images of the moon's surface, especially the permanently shadowed polar regions. It will also search for evidence of water or ice and attempt to identify the chemical breakdown of certain lunar rocks.
The spacecraft is carrying payloads from the United States, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Bulgaria. One of the instruments is the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument funded by NASA as a Discovery Mission of Opportunity and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper is a state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer that will provide the first map of the entire lunar surface at high spatial and spectral resolution, revealing the minerals that make up the moon's surface. Scientists will use this information to answer questions about the moon's origin and geological development, as well as the evolution of terrestrial planets in the early solar system. The map also may be used by astronauts to locate resources, possibly including water, that can support exploration of the moon and beyond.
NASA also funded the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar, or Mini-SAR, which is a small imaging radar that will map the permanently shadowed lunar polar regions, including large areas never visible from Earth. The Mini-SAR data will be used to determine the location and distribution of water ice deposits on the moon. Data from the instrument will help scientists learn about the history and nature of objects hitting the moon, and the processes that throw material from the outer solar system into the inner planets.
Data from the two instruments will contribute to NASA's increased understanding of the lunar environment as it implements the nation's space exploration policy, which calls for robotic and human missions to the moon.
"The opportunity to fly NASA instruments on Chandrayaan-1 undoubtedly will lead to important scientific discoveries," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said. "This exciting collaboration represents an important next step in what we hope to be a long and mutually beneficial relationship with India in future civil space exploration."
In addition to the two science instruments, NASA will provide space communications support to Chandrayaan-1. The primary location for the NASA ground tracking station is at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD.
For more information about Chandrayaan-1, visit:
http://www.isro.org/Chandrayaan
For more information about the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, visit:
http://m3.jpl.nasa.gov
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