As ISRO gears up for the launch of Chandrayaan-2 — its very first lunar rover this year — the mission has generated lots of buzz due to its cheap operative cost.
As ISRO gears up for the launch of Chandrayaan-2 — its very first lunar rover this year — the mission has generated lots of buzz due to its cheap operative cost.
At Rs 800 crore, Chandrayaan-2 is much cheaper than Interstellar, Christopher Nolan’s mega sci-fi Hollywood movie.
The 2014 blockbuster was made at the cost of Rs 1,062 crore. The 2018 lunar mission shows how ISRO is not only able to not complete its project on time, but also within the limited budget.
‘We keep strict vigil on every stage of spacecraft’s development, therefore, we are able to avoid wastage of products,’ ISRO chairman Dr K Sivan was quoted saying by the Times of Indian in an interview.
ISRO chairman Dr K Sivan said that the organisation has identified two locations for the landing on moon. "We have identified two locations and will be choosing one. No other moon mission has landed in this area,” Dr K Sivan said according to a TOI report.
ISRO is planning to launch in April from Sriharikota. After its launch from Sriharikota, it will take one or two months time for the orbiter to reach moon's orbit, the ISRO chief said.
"After reaching the moon's orbit, the lander will get detached from the orbiter and do a soft-landing near the south pole of the moon. The 6-wheeled rover fixed within the lander will get detached and move on the lunar surface. The rover has been designed in such a way that it will have power to spend a lunar day or 14 Earth days on the moon's surface and walk up to 150-200 km. It will do several experiments and on-site chemical analysis of the surface," Dr Sivan said.
ISRO is also planning to send three unmanned vehicles which include, an orbiter craft that will hover above the moon’s surface, plus a rover and a lander that will safely plop that rover on the moon.
If everything goes according the plan, this mission on the Moon will be completed in 14 Earth days, that's just enough time for the Moon to make one full orbit around our planet.
During the 14 earth days stay in the moon, the rover will only take 15 minutes time to send images and data of the lunar surface back to the Earth through the orbiter.
This will be the ISRO's first attempt to get a more delicate and precise up-close look at the lunar surface.
Earlier, Chandrayaan-1 was launched from Sriharikota off the East coast of India at an estimated value of $83 million. ISRO’s 5-foot by 5-foot cube made it into lunar orbit and discovered some “magmatic water” on a Moon crater. But, in November 2008, the spacecraft crashed into the Moon and got lost in the lunar orbit. The craft had fulfilled almost 80 percent of its tasks before it lost contact with ISRO. It was found again by NASA in 2016.
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