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| Edited By: Nirad Mudur |Source: DNA |Updated: Apr 13, 2018, 03:10 AM IST
The first ever complete map of moon’s surface being developed by the US’s National Aeronautics & Space Administration (Nasa) will show India’s second unmanned lunar mission – Chandrayaan-2 – the way around on moon.
The map, which is being readied by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre by using its lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) spacecraft that is orbiting moon, will help India’s 2013 scheduled Chandrayaan-2 determine its precise landing point on the lunar surface, sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) told DNA.
As a member of the international lunar exploration working group, India is in line to procure Nasa’s lunar map data when the work will be complete, sometime in 2013, in time for Chandrayaan-2 to be launched.
The Chandrayaan-2 will comprise a 1,200 kg Russian-designed and developed moon lander carrying a single 15 kg rover developed by Isro in collaboration with Russia. The lander will also carry a 35 kg scientific payload powered by solar panels, an equipment to analyse the lunar soil and detect the presence of water, a seismometer, a laser reflector, and will place a landing beacon to facilitate future moon landings.
According to them, the data being compiled will include digital elevations and terrain maps which will act as fundamental reference for future scientific and human exploration missions to the moon, beginning with Chandrayaan-2.
“The data will be used by space scientists for a period of six months before being put into the public domain,” RR Navalgund, director of Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre (SAC), told DNA.
Chandrayaan-2 will pick up from where Chandrayaan-1 (October 2008-August 2009) left off after recording the discovery of water and water ice on moon, particularly in moon’s polar regions.
These regions are not reached by sunlight and not much is known about how deep these craters are near the lunar poles.
But what space scientists do know is that these function as ideal cold storage capable of accumulating and preserving water ice and water molecules which will tremendously help future lunar exploratory missions.
