India goes for the Moon!

Today India shot for the moon! (India’s Evolution)

It has been a lot of years that India has been growing in stature in the space community.. but ultimately it was the aim for the moon!  China is also in that race and so is India.  China had their astronaut walk in space and India wanted to do something about the moon!  So, the cosmos war that was on in 1960’s between USSR and USA is now going on between China and India.

Chandrayaan-1, India’s maiden moon spacecraft, was on Wednesday put into Transfer Orbit around the earth by the Polar Launch Vehicle about 19 minutes after it blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here. The 1,380 kg Chandrayaan-1, carrying 11 payloads, was released into a Tansfer Orbit at a perigee (nearest point to earth) of about 250 km and apogee (farthest point from the earth) of about 23,000 km, 18.2 minutes after the PSLV-C11 blasted off as the scientists broke into jubilation at the mission control centre.

After a series of procedures over the next two weeks, the spacecraft would reach its desired Lunar orbit and placed at a height of 100 km from the Lunar surface, marking the operational phase of the mission which would put India in the elite lunar club.

Shaped like a rectangular prism, the 1,400kg spacecraft, whose name means ‘moon vehicle’, is on a two-year orbital mission. It will carry 11 payloads, including those from other countries.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists say that the lunar mission will be one of the most intense scientific explorations of its kind, and will have several beneficial technological spin-offs.

The mission’s objectives include preparing a 3-D atlas of the moon’s regions and a chemical mapping of the entire lunar surface, and exploring the availability of water and helium, a clean source of energy.