India all set to land on Moon

BANGALORE: The Indian flag is all set to mark its presence on the lunar surface for the first time on Friday as a moon probe with the tri-colour painted on it will detach from Chandrayaan-1 and descend onto the earth's natural satellite. 

"The Moon Impact Probe is expected to be detached (from Chandrayaan-1) at around 10pm tomorrow," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spokesperson S Satish said. 

Miniature Indian flags are painted on four sides of MIP. "It will signify the entry of India on Moon," Satish said. 

"During its 20-minute descent to the moon's surface, MIP will take pictures and transmit these back to the ground," he said. 

MIP is one of the 11 scientific instruments (payloads) onboard Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft mission to Moon launched on October 22. 

The spacecraft yesterday reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms over the moon surface after ISRO scientists successfully carried out the last critical orbit lowering operation. 

Developed by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP is to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon. 

The probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions. This apart, scientific exploration of the moon at close distance is also intended using MIP.

As reported by Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/India_to_mark_entry_on_Moon_tomorrow/rssarticleshow/3708436.cms

Next its Mission Sun

After Chandrayaan-I moon odyssey, it's in a way "Mission Sun" for team ISRO. 

Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation are in an advance stage of designing a spacecraft, named 'Aditya', to study the outermost region of the Sun called corona. 

"That's a mini satellite. In fact, the design is just getting completed," ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said. 

"During solar maxim...which is happening...we would like to see the type of emissions which are taking place in the Sun and how it interacts with the ionosphere and atmosphere and so on," he said. 

According to Dr Jayati Datta, deputy programme director, space science office, ISRO, Aditya is the first space based Solar coronagraph intended to study corona. 

'Aditya' would be the first attempt by the Indian scientific community to unravel the mysteries associated with coronal heating, coronal mass ejections and the associated space weather processes and study of these would provide important information on the solar activity conditions, she said. 

"A basic understanding of the physical processes and continuous monitoring would help in taking necessary steps towards protecting ISRO's satellites either by switching them off or putting them on a stand-by mode as warranted by the background conditions," Datta Said. 

The temperature of the solar corona goes beyond million degrees. From the Earth, corona can be seen only during total solar eclipses mainly due to the bright Solar disc and the scattering of the sunlight by the Earth's atmosphere. One has to go beyond the atmosphere to be able to mask the bright solar disc and study the corona.

Read the full story at:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/After_moon_odyssey_its_Mission_Sun_for_ISRO/rssarticleshow/3699465.cms

Chandrayaan-1 in lunar orbit says PTI News

Bangalore/Gandhinagar, Nov 4 (PTI) India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft--Chandrayaan-1--entered the lunar space early today after a successful fifth and final orbit raising manoeuvre and is likely to start circling the moon by Saturday. The satellite is now orbiting at a maximum altitude of 380,000 kms from earth.

Exactly two weeks after it was launched from Sriharikota, the spacecraft was in the last lap of its journey into the moon's orbit after it was injected into the lunar transfer trajectory by space scientists in a critical operation described by ISRO as one of the "crucial and important milestones" in the Chandrayaan-1 mission.

"It (Chandrayaan-1) is being tracked by Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore. Today we have done the last orbit-raising manoeuvre to enter the lunar transfer trajectory. If everything goes right, by November 8, Chandrayaan-1 will start circling the moon," Nair told reporters in Ahmedabad on the sidelines of a function here.

Chandrayaan-1 entered the lunar transfer trajectory with an apogee(farthest point from earth) of about 380,000 km, the space agency said in a statement.

"On Saturday evening, the lunar orbit insertion manoeuvres are planned to be carried out and the Chandrayaan will be captured in Moon's orbit," ISRO spokesperson S Satish told PTI in Bangalore.

During the crucial manoeuvre today at 4.56 am, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for 145 seconds.

Since its launch on October 22 by PSLV-C11, all systems onboard Chandrayaan-I spacecraft are performing normally, Nair said. PTI

The full news can be read at here:
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/A7E1B6CFF0396764652574F70040FECA?OpenDocument