Chandrayaan-1 Archives - Defence Monitor

20 Aug

Chandrayaan-1 team was anxious till spacecraft entered lunar orbit

Chennai: The guiding of Indias first spacecraft to the moon --Chandrayaan-1 -- was a very big event in 2008 and about 200 officials were in tense and anxious, sending up their prayers to their 'insta devathas (favourite deities) on the day when the spacecraft was being injected into the lunar orbit, recalled M. Annadurai, former Director, U.R. Rao Satellite Centre (URSC). He was also the Project Director of India's first moon mission Chandrayaan-1."That was the first inter-planetary mission for ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). It was also the first time we were tracking a satellite that was beyond 36,000 km," he…

12 Jul

Fuel leak, bad weather, other challenges: Team Chandrayaan-1 reminisces

Chennai: Fuel leakage during propellant filling of the transport rocket, inclement weather, designing the payloads and the spacecraft were some of the challenges provoking anxious moments for the Chandrayaan-1 mission, according to the now retired senior team members of the project.Chandrayaan-1 was India's first interplanetary mission that was realised in 2008. "It was the success of the Chandrayaan-1 mission which propelled Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to progress towards the Mars mission and now the second moon mission Chandrayaan-2," said M. Annadurai under whose supervision was designed the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft."The Chandrayaan-1 mission also found traces of water on the moon. This…

03 Jan

India’s second Moon mission gets delayed again

Bengaluru: India's second Moon mission Chandrayaan-2 that was to be launched on Thursday with a lander and rover got delayed again, officials said on Thursday."The next launch date of Chandrayaan-2 has not been confirmed yet," a spokesman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS here. This is the second time the space agency deferred the mission launch after it was put off first time in October for unspecified reasons.Though ISRO Chairman K. Sivan told the media here earlier that they planned to launch Chandrayaan-2 on January 3, reason for the delay has not been made public yet. "The…