India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon

yaksha writes to tell us that the Indian Space probe, Chandrayaan, has become only the fourth nation to land a probe on the Moon. The 35-kg Moon Impact Probe touched down in what officials are describing as a "perfect 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."

Re:In Other News....

[tejaskokje]

7-11 is not owned by India dumbo.

Re:india has nukes

[Digitus1337]

This does not change India's status as a "player" in that respect. It does not need very much range at all to hit Pakistan or China. It is so close to Pakistan that it would be -very- difficult for either side to retaliate in the case of a nuclear attack if there was any amount of hesitation, which does make the situation dangerous (for fear of false positive indicators of an attack) but this does not change that.

Re:Impact probe

[sighted]

Chandrayaan-1 is an orbiter that will be in operation for some time. The Moon Impact Probe just rode along. One purpose for the impactor was to serve as part of a dress rehearsal for a later soft landing mission. From the source announcement [isro.org]: "Weighing 34 kg at the time of its launch onboard Chandrayaan-1, the box shaped MIP carried three instruments â" a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system was intended to take the pictures of the moonâ(TM)s surface as MIP approached it. The radar altimeter was included to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface. Such instruments are necessary for future lunar soft landing missions. And, the mass spectrometer was for studying the extremely thin lunar atmosphere."

Re:The probe is a nation?

[ifdef]

Read more carefully. India might have a population of 1.15 billion, but the probe itself does not.

The first images....

[sas-dot]

Here are the first images from MIP.. Image 1 [isro.org] Image 2 [isro.org]

Re:Impact probe

[danene]

Actually, the impact probe is actually an afterthought. The original plan included only the Chandrayaan which is a satellite which comprises of 11 missions (terrain mapping etc) for a 2 year duration. Indian ex-President Dr. Kalam suggested that perhaps a probe could also be added and the Indian Space Agency got quite enthusiastic about the idea. The real purpose is not to land or impact on the moon its the development of technologies to reach the moon and the 11 missions on the satellite. It is simply a precursor to landing a man on the moon which is planned for in the next 15 years. Why does it take so long you might ask ? 2 reasons, one cant obviously simply buy the technologies, and secondly the whole program is on the shoestring budget (this particular program including the development and deployment of all the technologies cost US $ 76 million).

Re:Landing?

[Black-Man]

Must not be mentioned in the article you read... in the one I read it states:

"Space official Shiv Kumar said the 34-kilogram probe hit the moon surface traveling at 1.6 kilometers per second, which is a speed of 5,760 kilometers per hour (3,579 mph)."

A better source by The Hindu

[iammani]

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/15/stories/2008111550580100.htm [hindu.com] would be a better source for the story.