ISRO to launch Chandrayaan-I in September

Bangalore, July 24 (ANI): Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch Chandrayaan-I, India's maiden mission to the moon, in September.

Talking to ANI in an exclusive interview on the sidelights of a seminar here today, Chairman of ISRO G. Madhavan Nair said that the final tests have been on to launch the spacecraft to moon.

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Chandrayaan-I will be launched atop a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), India's workhorse rocket with a streak of nine consecutive flawless missions.

The spacecraft would be loaded with six instruments including a high-resolution stereo camera capable of imaging objects about 16 feet in diameter.

It will also carry near-infrared and X-ray spectrometers and a laser altimeter to determine the altitude of the lunar craft for spatial coverage of various instruments.

These payloads will enable researchers to ascertain the composition and topography of the lunar surface.

The engineers have also built a 64-pound impactor that will be dropped from the orbiting spacecraft for a suicidal nosedive into the moon.

The probe will relay video imagery, altitude information and spectral data back to Earth through the Chandrayaan mothership, which will be in a lunar orbit 100 kilometres away.

The remote sensing satellite will weigh 1304 kg (590 kg initial orbit mass and 504 kg dry mass). By K G Vasuki (ANI)