Chandrayan-1 moon mission

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Sanjay M
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Sanjay M »

What are the speculations on the most likely cause of failure? Is it perhaps the overheating problem that had been previously reported? I thought that had been addressed by elevating the spacecraft's orbit.

I recently read that NASA's LCROSS lunar orbiter is using a new and powerful new broadband communication antenna that transmits over 100mbps:

http://www.gizmag.com/fast-lunar-data-transfer/12628/

I hope ISRO looks at ways to upgrade its space probe designs for better performance and reliability.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Victor »

90% success. The critical technologies--lunar orbit, lunar probe, hi-def photomapping etc--have been validated and the remaining orbits around the moon were essentially timepass while the batteries ran out, albeit highly ambitious timepass.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Sanjay M »

So is it the failure of the star sensor which deprived the probe of the ability to re-orient its antenna towards Earth? Is there any known or suspected cause for communication failure?

Is it a case of just the antenna being incorrectly aligned to recieve/send data? Or is there a deeper failure?

Is the thing equipped with any automated routines that would kick in, in the event of communication being broken? If not, they need to put something like that in for the next time.

Why did the star sensor break down? I read it was due to the higher than expected levels of punishing radiation coming from the Moon. Why was this sensor in particular vulnerable to the radition, more than others?
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by sanjaykumar »

Claim is that 95% of mission objectives met. Not too bad.

Also if they pulled of the bistatic radar experiment for polar ice without star sensor orienteering, that would be amazingly precise navigation relying on the onboard cameras.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by pankajs »

They were setup for the bistatic radar experiment and the calibration was done. I do not think they collected any usable data.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by wasu »

http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/script ... Aug21_2009

ISRO-NASA Joint Experiment To Search for Water Ice on the Moon

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA performed a unique joint experiment today (Aug. 21, 2009), that could yield additional information on the possibility of existence of ice in a permanently shadowed crater near the North pole of the moon. Known as Bi-Static Experiment, it involved ISROs Chandrayaan-1 and NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. Currently, Chandrayaan-1 and LRO are orbiting the Moon. The two spacecraft passed close enough to one another when they were over the lunar North pole to attempt this interesting experiment.

Both Chandrayaan-1 and LRO are equipped with a NASA Miniature Radio Frequency (RF) instrument that functions as a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), known as Mini-SAR on Chandrayaan-1 and Mini-RF on LRO. Chandrayaan-1 in transmit mode transmitted the signals and LRO received the reflected signals. The experiment used both radars to point at Erlanger Crater at the same time. The Bi-Static observations were made on August 21, 2009 at 00:30 hours (IST). Before the experiment commenced, LRO executed a minor manoeuvre to adjust its orbit to the well-established Chandrayaan-1 orbit. The data was collected for about 4 minutes. MiniSAR of Chandrayaan-1 was fine tuned for making observations in terms of pulse width, range rate sampling as well as its 200 km orbit height. The operations went on as planned.

All Chandrayaan-1 operations related to Bi-Static experiment were executed from Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Peenya. Science Data was immediately downloaded over Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the ground station that had the visibility. Later today morning (August 21, 2009), during Chandrayaan-1s visibility over Indian Deep Space Networks antennas at Byalalu, near Bangalore, the data was again obtained along with spacecrafts orientation information when Bi-Static observations were performed.

For the Bi-Static experiment, the Mini-SAR on Chandrayaan-1 performed its normal SAR imaging (transmitting and receiving) while the Mini-RF was made to receive only. The two instruments looked at the same location from different angles. Comparing the signal that bounces straight back to Chandrayaan-1 with the signal that bounces at a slight angle to LRO provides unique information about the lunar surface.

Observations from today`s experiment are being analysed by scientists from ISRO and NASA.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by pankajs »

wasu wrote:http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/script ... Aug21_2009

ISRO-NASA Joint Experiment To Search for Water Ice on the Moon
Before the experiment commenced, LRO executed a minor manoeuvre to adjust its orbit to the well-established Chandrayaan-1 orbit. The data was collected for about 4 minutes. MiniSAR of Chandrayaan-1 was fine tuned for making observations in terms of pulse width, range rate sampling as well as its 200 km orbit height. The operations went on as planned.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Dilbu »

'ISRO formally calls off Chandrayaan-1 moon mission'
Panaji, Aug 30 (PTI) Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today said Chandrayaan-1 moon mission has been formally called off as the space agency has lost radio contact with the craft.

"We don't have contact with the spacecraft and we had to terminate the mission," ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair told reporters here.

He, however, said the moon mission was a great success and 95 per cent of its objective was completed. "We could collect a large volume of data, including 70,000 images of the moon."

ISRO scientists, present along with Nair, said the spacecraft was hovering at 200 kms from the surface of the moon and it would take 1,000 days before it touches the lunar surface.

They said it was in discussion with the US and Russia to track the spacecraft.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by vishwakarmaa »

stupid flaming deleted.
Last edited by Rahul M on 30 Aug 2009 18:24, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: user warned.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by juvva »

KSLV launch failure, LCROSS anamoly and now CY comm. loss....not good times for space missions :(
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Sanjay M »

‘Failure of power supply to onboard computers'
T. S. Subramanian

The most plausible reason for the ground controllers of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to lose radio contact with Chandrayaan-1 on Saturday was the failure of power supply to the two computers on board the spacecraft, according to T.K. Alex, Director of the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore.
Last edited by Gerard on 31 Aug 2009 01:23, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: URL fixed
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

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Pranay
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Pranay »

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/scien ... ?ref=world
Indian Moon Orbiter Loses Contact

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 29, 2009
NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s national space agency said that communications with its first unstaffed spacecraft to orbit the moon were lost on Saturday and that its scientists were no longer controlling the orbiter.

Radio contact with the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was abruptly lost at 1:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, said S. Satish, a spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization. The agency’s monitoring unit near the southern city of Bangalore was no longer receiving data from the spacecraft, he said.

The launching of Chandrayaan-1 last October put India in an elite club of countries with moon missions: the United States, Russia, Japan, China and members of the European Space Agency.

The mission was part of India’s effort to assert its power in space and claim some of the business opportunities there. One focus was to prospect the lunar surface for natural resources, including uranium for nuclear fuel.

The project aimed to increase India’s capacity to build more efficient rockets and satellites, especially through miniaturization, and open research avenues for young scientists.


The spacecraft, which is not intended to land on the moon, had completed more than 3,400 orbits of the moon over 312 days.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by disha »

Another unnecessary R&Dh. And there is advice from the DDM:
Though ISRO studied the earth and moon and the dynamics of their co-existence quite thoroughly, there was an obvious failure in understanding the power of the sun. The electromagnetic radiation from the sun was the main reason that affected critical electronics onboard Chandrayaan. This lesson is the success of Chandrayaan-I; ISRO won’t repeat the mistake when future missions are undertaken. The reliability of the subsystems must be scrutinised more stringently as we are on the threshold of an even bigger dream: Manned mission.
There is no way of understanding the power of the sun without experiencing it!
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Drevin »

From BR's link regarding chandrayaan-2.
When asked about the responsibility of abrupt end, Nair quipped, “only I am responsible”.
very nice of him to say that. :twisted: I believe we have the right man for Chandrayaan-2.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by SSridhar »

Adieu, Chandrayaan-I - Edit in The Hindu
Excerpts
For much of the spacecraft’s operational life, ISRO chose to convey the impression of a mission that was proceeding smoothly and according to plan. In reality, the probe seems to have been beset virtually from the start by the failure of crucial onboard systems. Both star-sensors used to maintain the spacecraft’s orientation stopped working, as did one of two ‘Bus Management Units’ that performed vital control functions. In addition, thermal management to keep the spacecraft’s systems and instruments from being alternately baked and frozen was not easy. The radiation environment around the Moon turned out to be more hostile than expected. As a result of these problems, ISRO opted in May to move the spacecraft farther away from the Moon. But it was only in July that the space agency finally acknowledged the extent of the setbacks and admitted that the mission was in jeopardy.
No country that had sent missions to Moon would be revealing all that they know about it, the environment and spacecraft management and station-keeping. India has to learn at every stage and there is nothing to be ashamed of. I consider the accurate injection of Chandrayaan-I into lunar orbit as a great achievement in itself.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by arunsrinivasan »

^^ As the old saying goes, we learn more from failures than from successes. ISRO, which has a culture of learning from its failures would benefit from this mission & get better.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Pranay »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8230230.stm

Lunar Lessons...
The Indian mission was in certain respects much more challenging than the Chinese maiden lunar mission which was a simple national orbiter.
Chandrayaan-1 was literally a two-in-one mission, since the main satellite was to orbit at 100km above the Moon and then a tiny gadget the size of a computer monitor was to attempt a landing on the Moon surface.
The mission did this on 14 November 2008. No nation to date had succeeded in both a lunar orbiter and an impactor at the first attempt.

Mr Nair says the mission is a 'complete success' (Photo: Pallava Bagla)
This was more than an experiment. It was also a brave global geo-political statement since the probe that crash landed on the Moon also permanently placed India's flag on the Moon.
Having done this, India became the fourth nation to have done this after Russia, America and the European Space Agency.
This is hugely significant because, if ever the Moon's resources are to be divided, India's rightful share can be claimed having achieved what others have not been able to do.
There are many other firsts to this mission.
In a highly un-Indian trait, the Indian space agency delivered the Moon mission with no cost or time overrun at $100m and within eight years of it first being suggested.
The spacecraft carried 11 different sophisticated instruments, one of the largest suites of experiments ever carried to the Moon.
The objective was to remotely map the resources of the Moon, prepare a three-dimensional atlas of it and look for water.
All instruments worked for about 10 months in the hostile lunar environment. Dr Nair calls it a "more than 100% success of Indian technology".
India also created a new model of international partnership.
On its own initiative India announced that it would be happy to piggyback instruments from global partners.
After a huge competition six instruments sourced from the European Space Agency (Esa), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and Bulgaria were chosen.

Chandrayaan peered into the deepest craters searching for water
Bernard Foing, the chief scientist for Space Sciences at Esa calls the Indian mission "the first multi-continent, multi-country lunar mission ever to be undertaken".
A little known fact is that India did not charge any money to fly these instruments 400,000km away: all got a free ride to the Moon, merely in exchange for sharing the scientific data.
Search for water
Chandrayaan-1 was also the first and the most detailed search for water on the Moon - to date water has never been found.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by SRay »

From the aforelinked bbc article:
The Indian mission was in certain respects much more challenging than the Chinese maiden lunar mission which was a simple national orbiter.
Its a bit unfair to call the maiden Chinese lunar mission a simple national orbiter. We can surely celebrate our success without taking others down a notch.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Sanjay M »

Hey, so does anyone have a link to China's roadmap wrt to the lunar exploration?
When do they plan to send a rover? (I assume it must be on the cards for them)
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Sanjay M »

Here are a couple of the Chandrayaan launch videos again:



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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by krishnan »

There was this "News at 8" on hindu chennai channel with a headline "chandryan-1 a failure". Wanted to bash that lady who was hosting that news

http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/ ... n-moon.htm
Though the Indian Space Research Organization had to prematurely terminate the country's first moon exploration mission after it lost radio contact with Chandrayaan-1 over the weekend, the probe is already said to have yielded a treasure trove of useful data.

This suggestion comes from Carle Pieters, a planetary geologist at Brown University in Rhode Island, the principal investigator of the Moon [ Images ] Mineralogy Mapper (M3), a NASA [ Images ] instrument on Chandrayaan-1.

Part of the M3 mission was to determine the distribution of elements and minerals on the moon's surface -- data that NASA had hoped would be useful for future manned missions to the moon or other planets.

Pieters said the M3 instrument had successfully completed a cursory global survey of mineralogy on the moon before the probe prematurely ended.

According to her, that first step was supposed to set the stage for higher-resolution mapping of the lunar surface.

"(But) even with the low-resolution data we have from the first phase, we have several new and completely unexpected discoveries," National Geographic News quoted her as saying.

She did not give any information as to what those discoveries might be, as other scientists are still reviewing the data.

Expressing "enormous disappointment" at the early loss of Chandrayaan-1, she revealed that she and her colleagues were looking into a future flight of a duplicate M3 instrument.

"When you see fantastic results and taste success, it's almost criminal not to plan for the future," she said.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by harbans »

I'd rate this a hugely successfull mission. ISRO has stood out tall in all this. Ever instrument has sent plenty extremely useful data including the first bistatic radar experiment carried out in space ever. Some reports incorrectly mention radiation as a problem, but i think it's more a thermal issue than a radiation one specially if it passed through the Van Allen belts without problems. Anwas here are some ineresting writeups/ pics..

This is the NG link for the quote in the post above..

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ayaan.html

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... pace-news/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... HW54NyN9Y4

Pic below: APPLE being transported by a Bullock Cart.. :mrgreen:

http://www.isro.org/Imagegallery/otherimages.aspx#0
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by vishwakarmaa »

SRay wrote:From the aforelinked bbc article:
The Indian mission was in certain respects much more challenging than the Chinese maiden lunar mission which was a simple national orbiter.
Its a bit unfair to call the maiden Chinese lunar mission a simple national orbiter. We can surely celebrate our success without taking others down a notch.
BBC is a mouthpiece of UK Govt. and it has its own spin like NYT and Wash-Times.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by vishwakarmaa »

SSridhar wrote:No country that had sent missions to Moon would be revealing all that they know about it, the environment and spacecraft management and station-keeping. India has to learn at every stage and there is nothing to be ashamed of. I consider the accurate injection of Chandrayaan-I into lunar orbit as a great achievement in itself.
Same is true with Aircraft engine manufacturing.

Russians and Americans might tell you "how to piece together a RD-33 or F101" but they won't tell you "how to make an aircraft engine". Both are totally different things.

MoD and dumb Indian Airforce top brass should take lessons and better invest in LCA-II and improvising Kaveri desgins with help of domestic experts(those kept out from DRDO) rather than wasting money on Russian and American imports.

Also hiring a "consultant" for quicken Kaveri design process is a disaster and breakup of "learning" process. There is no shortcut to "innovation". You learn it by "doing" it.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Sanjay M »

Here is Al-Jazeera's latest discussion on Chandrayaan's termination:



The Indian guy from Hindustan Times came across as a bit of a babbler compared to the other guests. :P
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by SSridhar »

ISRO's Cash Awards for the Chandrayaan-I team
Excerpts
Awards totalling nearly Rs. 2 crore will be handed out as part of the ISRO instituted awards scheme for the year 2008. Two teams that worked on Chandrayaan-I : ‘spacecraft, including the Moon Impact Probe’ and ‘Payload Instruments Science Data Centre and Mission Operations’ are among the four teams that have bagged the Team Excellence Awards and the Rs. 5 lakh cash prize that goes along with it.
Give them a lot of rewards. They deserve them.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by SSridhar »

Sanjay M wrote:The Indian guy from Hindustan Times came across as a bit of a babbler compared to the other guests.
While the fluency or delivery of language or the lack of it is understandable, he wasn't able to articulate Indian position convincingly and clearly.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by vishwakarmaa »

SSridhar wrote:While the fluency or delivery of language or the lack of it is understandable, he wasn't able to articulate Indian position convincingly and clearly.
We are like this onlee. :lol:
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by shynee »

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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by pgbhat »

harbans wrote:Pic below: APPLE being transported by a Bullock Cart.. :mrgreen:

http://www.isro.org/Imagegallery/otherimages.aspx#0
:rotfl: amazing pic. :twisted:
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by juvva »

pgbhat wrote:
harbans wrote:Pic below: APPLE being transported by a Bullock Cart.. :mrgreen:

http://www.isro.org/Imagegallery/otherimages.aspx#0
:rotfl: amazing pic. :twisted:
But I wonder why a bullock cart was used? ISRO surely had enough trucks around even in the 70's.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by jaladipc »

American Aeronautics and Astronautics awarded Chandrayan-1 team.

Purely becos of the fact findings of US moon landings :rotfl:
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Shalav »

^^^^

Not really. The LRO already has taken hi-res photos of the Lunar landing sites.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/m ... sites.html
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by rajsunder »

pgbhat wrote:
harbans wrote:Pic below: APPLE being transported by a Bullock Cart.. :mrgreen:

http://www.isro.org/Imagegallery/otherimages.aspx#0
:rotfl: amazing pic. :twisted:
is it not supposed to be in a dust free environment ????
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by Sridhar »

Chandrayaan-1 confirms moon was once completely molten
http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article13939.ece
“It proves beyond doubt the magma ocean hypothesis. There is no other way this massive rock type could be formed,” said Carle Pieters, science manager at the NASA-supported spectroscopy facility at Brown University in the U.S.
s. Pieters also said that the Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was abandoned after communication was lost with the satellite, had thrown up a couple of surprise findings, which included identification of a new rock type on the moon.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by pgbhat »

rajsunder wrote:is it not supposed to be in a dust free environment ????
Well mission was successful in spite of the solar panel glitch. :twisted:
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by SSridhar »

Dr. Madhavan Nair on Chandrayaan-I
Since it was the first trip, the radiation protection and thermal management had fallen short of the real situation there. The fact that the ISRO could place Chandrayaan in its orbit just 100 km from the moon surface in the very first attempt itself was a great achievement.
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by arun »

juvva wrote:
arun wrote:August 19th, 2009

LRO, Chandrayaan-1 Team Up For Unique Search for Water Ice

Written by Nancy Atkinson

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and India's Chandrayaan-1 will team up on August 20 to perform a Bi-Static radar experiment to search for water ice in a crater on the Moon's north pole. Both spacecraft will be in close proximity approximately 200 km above the lunar surface, and both are equipped with radar instruments. The two instruments will look at the same location from different angles, with Chandrayaan-1's radar transmitting a signal which will be reflected off the interior of Erlanger crater, and then be picked up by LRO. Scientists will compare the signal that bounces straight back to Chandrayaan with the signal that bounces at a slight angle to LRO to garner unique information, particularly about any water ice that may be present inside the crater. ……………

Universe Today
Any info. on how this turned out?
Thanks!
Sadly the experiment failed due to “pointing problems” apparently brought on by the earlier failure of Chandrayaan’s star sensor:

Tandem Lunar Observations Failed
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Re: Chandrayan-1 moon mission

Post by John Snow »

harbans wrote:Pic below: APPLE being transported by a Bullock Cart.. :mrgreen:

http://www.isro.org/Imagegallery/otherimages.aspx#0
:rotfl: amazing pic. :twisted:
is it not supposed to be in a dust free environment ????
Notice the Bell Bottom curve of the guy in the right (next to Bull )

Actually taking it in bullock cart and open to dust is the best simulation of real conditions.

1) The bullock cart does not have any suspension in its wheels
2) The braking is not smooth
The above two are the replica of extreme vibrations the launch vehicle might impose on APPLE

3) The open dust prone environment is exactly like space debris simulation.

There was a reason why it was done the way it was done.
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