Bharat Rakshak

A 44-metre-tall and 316-tonne rocket called the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C11) carried the 1,380-kg lunar orbiter Chandrayaan 1 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at around 0620 hrs IST.

"Eighteen minutes into the flight the rocket will sling the spacecraft into the 255-km perigee (nearest point to earth) and 23,000 km apogee (farthest point from earth) path to script a new history in the annals of India's space odyssey," S Satish, director of ISRO’s Publications and Press Relations department, told IANS hours before the launch.

From there the spacecraft will be taken into more elliptical orbits, firing its onboard motor—technically called Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM)—towards the moon, 387,000 km from the earth.

Once the spacecraft nears the moon, the LAM will be fired in reverse to slow it down to enable the moon's gravity to capture Chandrayaan 1 into an elliptical orbit around the lunar poles.

Thereafter the spacecraft's orbit will be gradually lowered till it is 100 km above the moon's surface. That is expected to happen around November 8.

On November 14 the spacecraft will eject an important piece of luggage on to the moon's surface: the moon impact Probe (MIP).

Mission statement

A principal objective of Chandrayaan is to look for Helium 3, an isotope which is very rare on earth but is sought to power nuclear fusion and could be a valuable source of energy in the future, some scientists believe. It is thought to be more plentiful on the moon, but still rare and very difficult to extract.

The Rs 386-crore mission is also expected to carry out a detailed survey of the moon to look for precious metals and water. "We are going to get a three-dimensional atlas of the moon's surface, which will be used for chemical and mineralogical mapping of the entire lunar surface," Bhaskar Narayan, an ISRO director told Reuters.

While much of the technology involved in reaching the moon has not changed, analysts say current mapping equipment allows for the exploration of new areas, including below the surface.

Of the 11 instruments carried by Chandrayaan, five are Indian, three are from the European Space Agency, two from the US and one from Bulgaria. (Plus a couple of worms from Pakistan)

NASA is sending up a Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar that can search for ice — an important resource for any human settlements — under the lunar poles.

India is the sixth nation to send a nation to send a mission to moon after the US, former Soviet Union, European Space Agency, China and Japan. The United States is the only nation to have landed a man on the lunar surface, doing so for the first time in 1969.

we are among the big boys in space now !



congrats ISRO, you guys have done us proud.

Not quite till GSLV-III and Manned mission come through. GSLV-III was supposed to have first flight in 2009. Eagerly waiting for it.

SRIHARIKOTA: India's historic maiden mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-I, was launched early on Wednesday morning from the mission control room at SriMoon Mission: Chandrayaan-1 (TOI Photo)
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harikota.

The focus now shifts to the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) at Peenya in Bangalore, which will be the country's nerve-centre for tracking and controlling Chandrayaan-I for the next two years.

Peenya will receive the first signals from the spacecraft, when the fourth stage of the rocket separates and injects the spacecraft into Earth's orbit. From the 17th minute to the very last day of the spacecraft's life - two years from now - ISTRAC will be in command. [Any confirmation abour receipt of signal by ISTRAC???]
The Deep Space Network (DSN) at Byalalu will join ISTRAC in tracking the spacecraft six hours after take-off. Both DSN and ISTRAC will act as back-up stations for each other, with ISTRAC concentrating on the data flow from the spacecraft, and DSN helping in reception of the radio signals owing to its powerful 32-metre antenna. But ISTRAC will be the primary agency tracking the craft.

The control centre at ISTRAC has about 350 people monitoring the health of Indian satellites.

we are among the big boys in space now !



congrats ISRO, you guys have done us proud.

(3000kN thrust of GSLV vs 30,000 kN thrust of Saturn rockets)

Chandrayaan-1, India's maiden moon spacecraft, was put into Transfer Orbit around the earth by the Polar Launch Vehicle PSLV-C11 after it blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

The 1,380 kg Chandrayaan-1, carrying 11 payloads, was released into a Transfer Orbit 18.2 minutes after the PSLV-C11 blasted off.

After a series of procedures over the next two weeks, the spacecraft would reach its desired Lunar orbit and placed at a height of 100 km from the Lunar surface, marking the operational phase of the mission which would put India in the elite lunar club.

Earlier, at the end of the 49-hour countdown, the 44.4 meter tall four-stage PSLV-11 lifted off from the second launch pad into a cloudy sky.

This is the 14th flight of ISRO's workhorse PSLV, which had launched 29 satellites into a variety of orbits since 1993, and 13th successive one in a row.

...

Speaking to NDTV, Chief of the Indian space program Madhavan Nair gave details about the moon mission.

NDTV: What will it do sir? Is it carrying human beings?
Madhavan: No. This is actually a totally instrumental system

Is it carrying human beings?

No, just media dorks. And Pakis.