Chandrayaan made substantial gains

New Delhi
Sept. 6: The Chandrayaan-II is now in the offing, as Dr K. Kasturirangan, member, Planning Commission, and former Isro chief, has stated that even with the failed previous moon mission, much technology and scientific gains have been achieved for the successful launch of second such satellite by India.
Claiming that Chandrayaan-I was a successful mission, the scientist-turned policymaker said, it helped mapping 50 per cent of the moon surface and 90 per cent of the mineralogy of the celestial body.
Dr Kasturirangan was of the view that the mission was complete as far as infrared coverage and radiation monitoring dosage was concerned.
For the first time a satellite could come as low as 100 km from the moon surface, he said, adding that the earlier missions could reach up to 200 km.
“This gave us the opportunity to monitor every aspect of the moon surface,” he said.
Even the failed mission gave scientists substantial knowledge to take corrective steps for the next mission to get the broadest of achievements.
Dr Kasturirangan, however, claimed that the quality of imagery gathered from Chandrayaan-I is comparable with best in the world so far achieved.
“In a period of 5 to 10 years the country has a plan to go aggressively in space sciences,” Dr Kasturirangan said.
“Altogether 30 small satellites are in the pipeline and one or two large satellites are in the process of launch,” Dr Kasturirangan added.
The Chandrayaan-I, launched on October 22, 2008, from Andhra Pradesh, was the first such scientific and space mission for India.
This spacecraft was launched with PSLV-C-11, the indigenously developed launch vehicle.
The proposal to send this mission was approved by the government in November 2003 and about Rs 386 crores was spent on the mission from the conception to the execution stage.
The design life of this spacecraft was two years, meaning it was expected to remain in the orbit at least up to October 2010.