Chandrayaan Missions of India – Part 3

(இதன் தமிழ் வடிவத்திற்கு இங்கே சொடுக்கவும்)

Chandrayaan 2

Importance and Benefits of the Mission

• The mission offers a pristine environment to study of moon.
• It is also closer than other celestial bodies.
• It aims the understanding of how celestial bodies are formed and evolved.
• It can help us better understand the solar system and even earth.
• With space travel taking shape, the exoplanets are being discovered every day.
• It is help to learn more about earth’s celestial neighbor.
• It can help in the advanced missions.
• India would be the 4^th nation to reach the Moon.
• It boosts national pride in the citizens of India.
• It will boost the morale of scientists and research academicians.
• Also, it can motivate the youth to develop scientific temper.
• It will undertake real-life applications of science and technology.
• High precision components are used in the mission require high standards of manufacturing procedures.
• It is critical for imbibing the spirit of innovation in Indian manufacturing industry.

• ISRO initially partnered with a startup-Team Indus for the launch. 
• Team Indus is a private Bengaluru-based company.
• Still, it gave a boost to the Indian startup industry in space sector thereby promoting entrepreneurship.
• Chandrayaan-2 offers similar possibilities.
• For Chandrayaan-2 mission, two women - Ritu Kridhal and M Vanitha are leading as project and mission directors respectively.
• Thus, it is a symbol of women empowerment.
• It is an icon of women taking leadership roles in the country's biggest projects.

Way Forward

• The Chandrayaan-2 mission is a precursor to other ambitious missions like:
• The Gaganyaan project, which aims to place three Indians in space by 2022.
• Interplanetary probes and a solar spacecraft mission (Aditya-L1).
• Permanent space station in line with the International Space Station.
• India is already in talks with Japan’s JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) for a future mission Chandrayaan-3 in 2024.
• It aims to bring back soil and rock samples from the South Pole of the Moon.
• ISRO’s previous missions had several applications in different domains like telecommunication, military, remote-sensing, etc.
• Its future missions are expected to further explore new areas in deep space technology.
• Moon is the perfect test-bed for proving technologies required for future space exploration.
• If the future missions are successful in extracting water from the Moon, then it will pave the way for colonization of the Moon.
• Water will not only help in sustaining life on Moon.
• It can also provide Hydrogen and Oxygen to be used as fuel for interplanetary missions, particularly to Mars.
• Humanity is currently facing challenges like global warming, population explosion and shrinking of resources.
• Thus, mission programmes like Chandrayaan show the capability of Indian scientists.
• It aims to protect the interest of mankind and future generations by providing viable alternatives to life.

Highlights of Chandrayaan 2

• Chandrayaan 2 fostered the findings of Chandrayaan 1 as reported by the ISRO.
• The mission targeted the “South Polar region” of the Moon which was completely unexplored.
• The mission focused on the extensive mapping of the lunar surface for studying variations.
• In all the space missions, no country has ever attempted to land a spacecraft in the polar regions of the moon.
• This gave India a lead in space exploration on an international level.
• Due to the moon’s axis, few regions on the South Pole always remain dark.
• The craters might have never received sunlight because it at very low angles in the Polar Regions.
• Thus, it increased the chances of presence of ice on such surfaces.
• The lunar surface area at the south pole of the Moon remains in shadow.
• It is much larger than the North Pole thus making moon’s South Pole will be interesting.   
• This also increases the probability of the existence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it.
• It was performed successfully today on September 04, 2019, beginning at 03:42 hrs IST.
• It was planned using the onboard propulsion system.
• The duration of the manoeuvres was 9 seconds.
• On October 14, 2019, Chandrayaan-2 detected the presence of Argon-40 in the lunar exosphere.
• On July 30th, 2020 Chandrayaan-2 imaged the Sarabhai Crater located on the north-east quadrant of the moon.

Information gathered by Chandrayaan 2

Presence of water molecules on moon

• The mission has given the most precise information about the presence of H2O molecules on the Moon till date.

Presence of Minor elements

• Chromium, manganese and Sodium have been detected for the first time through remote sensing.
• The finding can lay the path for understanding magmatic evolution on the Moon.
• It gives deeper insights into the nebular conditions as well as planetary differentiation.

Information about solar flares

• A large number of microflares outside the active region have been observed for the first time.
• According to ISRO, this “has great implications on the understanding of the mechanism behind heating of the solar corona”.
• It has been an open problem for many decades.

Components of Chandrayaan – 2: Launch Vehicle

• Boosters (Stage 0) - S-200
• First Stage - L-110 liquid state
• Second Stage - C-25

Chandrayaan-2 Mission: Updates

• The orbital insertion was achieved on 20th August 2019.
• The Orbiter has life duration of 7 years and will continue its mission.
• Vikram Lander had a mission life of 14 days.
• The landing on the moon’s surface was planned on 7th September 2019.
• However, the landing failed at the final stages.
• Vikram lander crash-landed on the moon’s surface.
• The velocity was higher than desired velocity (2 m/s).
• The Failure Analysis Committee of ISRO concluded that a software glitch was the cause of the failure.
• Pragyan Rover was planned for duration of around 14 days.
• As the landing failed, the rover could not be deployed on the moon’s surface.
• ISRO has released the data from the country’s second mission to the Moon.
• The Chandrayaan-2 data is required to be in the Planetary Data System-4 (PDS4) standard.
• It is required to be peer reviewed scientifically and technically before acceptance as PDS archives.
• It is declared to ready for sharing with the global scientific community and the general public.

• This activity has been completed and hence the first set of data from the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
• It is now being released for the wider public use through the PRADAN portal hosted by Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC).
• ISSDC is the nodal centre of planetary data archive for the planetary missions of ISRO.
• The ISRO Science Data Archive (ISDA) currently holds data sets acquired by Chandrayaan-2 payloads from September-2019 to February-2020 from seven instruments.
• ISDA is the long-term archive for ISRO planetary missions.
• India aims to become the fourth country in the world to achieve this feat, joining the ranks of the United States, Russia, and China.
• The Chandrayaan 2 mission endeavors to create a huge scientific breakthrough not only for India, but to the world as a whole.
• Despite the failure, the mission’s orbiter and other parts have been functioning normally, gathering information.
• Recently, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released the information gathered by the scientific payloads till now.
• It is still to be analyzed and assessed.

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