India set for Second Chandrama Mission
Even before the launch of the Second Indian Mission to Chandrama, some due hard critics have begun their usual narrative. A mission to land on Chandrama or to Mangal apart from increasing scientific knowledge also helps to develops futuristic technologies. GPS, Mobile communication advancements, new materials being used in vehicles, solar panel efficiency improvements, fusion drive tech for power generation, ion engines, water recycling enhancements, lithium ion cell improvements all are fall outs of Space missions.
Moon landing will be a big achievement for India and ISRO. Further this is being done for less than Rs 1000cr which is peanuts compared to even the numerous individual banking frauds and political scams that have happened. Spending ₹1,000 crores on moon mission is anytime better than spending ₹3,500 crores on stones and statues.
Luna 1 was the first to crash land on the Moon in 1959, the first hard (unpowered) Moon landing later that same year was done by Luna 2. The U.S. could duplicate the feat only in 1962 with Ranger 4. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the Luna 9 and Luna13 missions. The U.S. followed with five Surveyor soft landings.
Luna 16 became the first uncrewed mission to return with Lunar samples on 24 September 1970. This was followed by Luna16 and then Luna24 in 1972 and 1976, respectively. Luna17 and Luna21 were successful Lunar rover missions in 1970 and 1973.
Japan became the third country to crash its spacecraft Hiten on the surface of the Moon at speed of around 8,000 kilometres per hour at a planned location on 10 Apr1993. This was end-of-life lunar orbiter that, because of system degradations, could no longer maintain its orbit. The European Space Agency also similarly and performed a controlled crash impact with their orbiter SMART1 on 3 September 2006.
Indian Space Research Organisation then became the third country to perform a controlled impact with its Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on 14 November 2008. The MIP was an ejected probe from the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter and performed remote sensing experiments during its descent to the lunar surface.
The Chinese lunar orbiter Chang’e 1 executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009. The rover mission Chang’e 3 soft-landed on 14 December 2013, as did its successor, Chang’e 4, on 3 January 2019. All crewed and uncrewed soft landings had taken place on the near side of the Moon, until 3 January 2019 when the Chinese Chang’e 4spacecraft made the first landing on the far side of the Moon.
On 22 February 2019, Israeli private space agency SpaceIL launched spacecraft Beresheetfrom Cape Canaveral, Florida with the intention of achieving a soft landing. SpaceIL lost contact with the spacecraft and it crashed into the surface on 11 April.
A total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. This was accomplished with two US pilot-astronauts flying a Lunar Module on each of six NASA missions across a 41-month period starting on 20 July 1969 with Neil Armstrongand Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, and ending on 14 December 1972 UTC with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt on Apollo 17. Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface.
All Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the Command Module. The last three missions had a rover for increased mobility.
More than a decade after Chandrayaan-1, India will be launching its second mission from Sriharikota at 2.51am on Monday. A successful launch itself will mark multiple firsts for India, it will also firmly cement India’s membership in the international space Quadrilateral with the United States, Russia and China.
In the 10 years between Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2, China too has landed on just twice. The latest being ‘Chang’e 4’ that touched down on the far side of the Moon in January 2019, a first for any country.
The first Chinese Chandrama mission CHANGE1 was launched on 24 October 2007 to orbit and scan the entire Lunar surface to provide a reference for future soft landings. The probe also mapped the abundance and distribution of various chemical elements on the surface as part of an evaluation of potentially useful resources. Next CHANGE2 sent on 1 October 2010 after completing the mapping task left lunar orbit and headed for the Earth–Sun L2 Lagrangian Point before heading into deep space.
CHANGE 3 launched on 2 December 2013 landed on the Chandrama surface carrying a 140 kg lunar rover named Yutu, which was designed to explore an area of 3 square kilometres during a 3-month mission. CHANGE4 was launched on 7 December 2018 and landed on 3 January 2019 on the South Pole-Aitken Basin, on the far side of the Moon, and deployed the Yutu-2 rover.
CHANGE 5 is expected to be launched in December 2019 rocket, with a lander capable of collecting up to 2 kilograms of lunar samples and returning them to the Earth.
CHANGE 6, expected to launch in 2023 or 2024, will investigate the topography, composition and subsurface structure of the landing site, and it will return south polar samples to Earth.
CHANGE 7 expected to launch in 2023, is a lander that will explore the south pole for resources. The mission will include an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
CHANGE 8 expected to launch in 2027, will verify the utilization and development of natural resources. It may include a lander, a rover, a flying detect as well as a 3D-printing experiment using in-situ resource utilization to build a structure. It will also transport a small sealed ecosystem experiment.
China us also reviewing preliminary studies for a crewed lunar landing mission in the 2030s, and possibly build an outpost near the lunar south pole with international cooperation.
Chandrayan 1 was launched in Oct2008 which sent its Lunar Impact Probe striking south pole in a controlled manner, making India the fourth country after Russia, USA and Japan to place its flag on the Moon. The probe hit near the crater Shackleton ejecting sub-surface soil that could be analysed for the presence of lunar water ice. The location of impact was named as Jawahar Point.
The estimated cost for the project was ₹386 crore. The lunar mission carried five ISRO payloads and six payloads from other space agencies including NASA, ESA, and the Bulgarian Aerospace Agency, which were carried free of cost. Among its many achievements was the discovery of widespread presence of water molecules in lunar soil.
The actual achievements will come 52 days later, when it lands on the lunar surface. The Rs 978-crore mission involves an orbiter around the Moon, a lander (Vikram) and a rover (Pragyan).
