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India set for unmanned moon mission
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 22 October 2008, 00:01 IST |
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Bangalore: The country is all set to launch its first unmanned moon mission when the spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 blasts into space aboard an Indian made rocket from the Satish Dhawan space center.
This will put India on the frontier of the space race which saw Japan and China launch lunar orbiters. Launch sites are regularly used in those countries. The Chandrayaan -1 will be the first attempt to propel a spacecraft into the Earth's atmosphere. India has previously launched suborbital satellites in 1975. For four years about 1000 sceintists have been working on the project.
The spacecraft costing $80million is going to orbit the moon about 60 miles from the lunar surface. It will eventually conduct a series of experiments on the moon's mineral, geological and chemical characteristics as well as searching for evidence of water on the moon.
Chandrayaan is carrying payloads for 11 scientific experiments including five from India, two from U.S. and one each from Germany, Britain, Sweden and Bulgaria.
Once the launch is carried out, India will be the third nation in the world to do so. Earlier China and Japan were the ones to launch their spacecrafts. Amongst Asian countries China's Chaange 1 and Japan's Kaguya were the other Lunar orbiters which were launched.
However critics argue that instead of the government spending millions on Space missions, it must spend the money on giving education, fighting poverty and trying to control the rising food and fuel prices. This launch is at a time when the Indian economy has begun to slowdown amidst the global financial crisis. Inflation adjusted growth in gross domestic product fell to 7.9 percent in the quarter ended June 30. The fall is below eight percent for the first time in three years.
C S Unnikrishnan ,a scientist with Tata Institute Of Fundamental Research in Mumbai said, "This Mission will only project India as a major player in commercial launch systems."
Prior to this, ISRO has launched satellites for customers from Germany, Belgium, Indonesia since 2001. Political backing of the project is very much present. India's Congress led government and even country's nationalistic leftist parties are supporting the launch. National Secretary of CPI, India Atul Kumar Jain said, " Opposing the mission would be demoralizing for the scientific community and such projects are a national pride."