Chandrayaan 2 likely in 2011
Chandrayaan-II project, expected to be launched in 2011, is being designed to ensure the failures that afflicted Chandrayaan-I will not surface in this newer venture. Minister of science & technology Prithviraj Chavan told the Lok Sabha. that Chandrayaan-II will be receiving major technological inputs from Russia.
Chandrayaan-II is envisaged to have an Indian Orbiter module with scientific instruments to go round the moon and a Russian lander module carrying an Indian rover and some scientific instruments.
The Chandrayaan-II project will be launched using the Indian Geostationary Launch Vehicle — GSLV while the costs of these components will be met by the space agencies of the respective countries.
The data provided by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) and Hyper-Spectral Imager (HySI) instruments, carried on-board the Chandrayaan-I spacecraft, have revealed large spans of crystalline feldspar on the lunar surface.
The data provided by the Chandrayaan-I X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) also revealed the presence of magnesium, aluminium, silicon and calcium on the lunar surface.
The analysis of the data provided by the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar. (Mini-SAR), the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), and the Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) has helped in photo-geological mapping of considerable part of the lunar surface, Mr Chavan pointed out.
This is in addition to the discovery of the hydroxyl and water molecules near the polar regions of the moon.
Thus, some of the objectives of the Chandrayaan-I project have been achieved.
Indian scientists are expected to approach the international scientific community for proposals for sensors and experiments to include on the rover.
This may be a difficult because the final configuration of the mission has not yet been determined.
To meet the anticipated launch date India and its partners will have to work within some serious time constraints.
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