Source: http://www.deepikaglobal.com/latestnews

23 November, 2004

India to launch Chandraya[a]n-1 in 2007-08

Udaipur, Nov 23 (UNI) India’s lunar exploration vehicle “Chandraya[a]n-1” will be launched in 2007-08, Physical Research laboratory Acting Director S Krishnaswami has said.

The Ahmedabad-based PRL has been assigned the responsibilities of conducting science experiments, development of softwares and various payloads for “Chandraya[a]-1”,of Krishnaswami said yesterday at the welcome session of the five-day “International Conference on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon”.

President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam will inaugurate the conference later today, being attended by scientists from Japan, China, Australia, Russia, and the US besides ISRO’s Moon Mission team led by Dr George Joseph.

Prof S R Taylor of the Australian National University spoke about the various moon missions such as Apollo, Clementine and Lunar Orbiter missions which had helped in learning about the moon and led to the ‘Giant Impact’ hypothesis.

Discussing the achievements of the telescopic and Clementine mission in probing the lunar mineralogy, Prof Carle Peters said high spectral and spatial resolution was required for better understanding the composition of the moon and had helped in estimation of rock types and abundance of iron bearing minerals.

“Chandraya[a]n-1 is among the future lunar exploration programmes which will contribute further in this direction,” she added.

Prof D J Lawrence of Los Alamos Mational Laboratory, USA described the three spectrometers carried by the Lunar Prospector mission and reviewed some results, including the discovery of water and enhanced hydrogen abundances on both poles of the moon and the global measurement of major elements from the moon. The results had major implications for understanding of lunar formation and evolution, he said.

Paul Spudis of Lunar and Pl[a]netary Institute gave details of NASA’s current space programmes such as Space [S]huttles and international space station.

Jim Benson of SpaceDev Company, USA stressed on the advantages of small low cost missions involving minimum risk to perform astronomical studies from the surface of the moon using the International Lunar Observatory.