Sun, rain and clouds willing, India?s first mission moon Chandrayaan-I is ready to leave earth on board PSLV- C11 (polar satellite launch vehicle) at 6.20 am on Wednesday. Scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) are on toes, as the unmanned mission shares the Indian spacecraft?s first thrill of carrying as many as 11 payloads (scientific instruments).
?Provided the weather goes well, we?re are launch-ready and confident? said MYS Prasad, associate director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota (SHAR), when contacted by FE.
For the first time that an Indian satellite would travel beyond the earth?s orbit and to a distance of around 4 lakh km.
The countdown started at 5.22 am on Monday. Amidst the flurry of last-minute activity at India?s Spaceport Shar, a team under project director M Annamalai has okayed all the thermal trials.
To make way for the big take-off, the 3,200-tonne mobile service tower, which served as the umbillical integration home, has slowly recoiled to a wheeled parking slot through its twin rail track. A battery of young scientists is gearing upto keep tabs on the real-time flight monitor data at the control centre.
Payloads piggybacking the Rs 386-crore Mission Moon from an assorted spectrum of countries. Equally diverse are their assignments.
Out of the 11 payloads only five are from India. Three are from European Space Agency, two from United States (US) and one from Bulgaria.
Four of these are to detect water. These are the mini synthetic aperture radar and moon mineralogy mapper from the US payload, near infrared spectrometer from Germany, and India?s hyper spectral imaging camera.
?We?ve also factored in extra time,? says mission director George Koshy. The payload can pickup the targeted data within 18 months. However, it is scheduled to stay on in the lunar orbit for two years, allowing for more time.
Chandrayaan-I?s burden of chores are as varied as the three-dimensional mapping of the moon as a more focussed study of the South Pole of the moon.
British scientists have reason to watch India?s Chandrayaan-I with equal excitement. The eyes of the C1XS Camera (that the Indian payload is taking to give lunar surface a onceover) are designed and made at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in United Kingdom. This lens can measure the abundances of chemical elements in the lunar surface by detecting the X-rays they absorb and re-emit.
Similarly, Finland too looks on with an technical gleam in the eye. Chandrayan-I?s C1XS camera has an extra detector systems to measure the x-ray impact on moon?s surface. This is provided by University of Helsinki Observatory, Finland.
India is also looking for clues on the presence of decay derivatives of uranium and thorium?radon and lead – on the moon surface. Its greatest gleanings are hoped to be in fetching happy water tidings. Nasa?s Lunar Prospector and US defence department?s Clementine Orbitor had hinted the presence of ice in the craters of moon.
An Isro spokesman says that the Indian team should be able to validate these earlier findings by next year. ?Our first challenge, however, would be to put the host of 11 payloads on the lunar orbit,? he says.