[BITList] India's moon landing.

[John Feltham]

Breakneck suicide dive gifts India a 'beautiful' moon
G.S. MUDUR

New Delhi, Nov. 14: A metallic box crammed with scientific instruments  
broke free from Chandrayaan-1 this evening and crashed near the lunar  
south pole, in a planned, successful attempt to put India's first  
signature on the moon.

During its 25-minute suicide dive that began at 8.06pm, the Moon  
Impact Probe captured images of the lunar surface, including the first- 
ever close-up pictures of a range of highlands called the Malpert  
mountains.

Scientists said the MIP, or the impactor, would have struck the ground  
at a speed of more than 1.5km per second (5,400kmph), and the ferocity  
of the impact would have left only shards of metal and its electronic  
innards scattered on the lunar landscape.

"But we're in a jubilant mood," said R. Venkata Ramanan, a scientist  
from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, who had  
helped plan the spacecraft orbit and trajectory of the impactor, and  
was today at the Spacecraft Control Centre in Bangalore to observe its  
crashlanding.

The impactor had the Indian flag painted on its sides. A senior Isro  
scientist said he would not speculate on the final condition of the  
impactor or the flags. "Imagine what will happen when something  
crashes at more than 5,000km per hour," the scientist said.

"Its job is over," the scientist said.

Minutes after releasing the impactor, the spacecraft moved to the  
other side of the moon, becoming invisible to ground stations on Earth.

At 9.30pm, when the orbiter was visible again, scientists at the Deep  
Space Network station near Bangalore began to download the pictures  
that had been stored on the orbiter.

"We've got beautiful pictures... it's bright daylight there," said  
Ramanan. "Frame by frame, we can sense it heading closer and closer to  
the moon."

The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft itself with its other 10 scientific  
payloads continues to go around the moon in a circular orbit 102km  
above the surface. The payloads will help generate a map of the moon  
in unprecedented detail, look for minerals, and identify sites for  
future missions.

The impactor began relaying data to its mother ship as soon as it  
separated at 8.06pm and abruptly stopped at 8.31pm.

"The spike in data reception suggests the payload had crashlanded,"  
Ramanan said.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) scientists said the  
instruments on the impactor would help India prepare for future soft  
landings.

During its descent, an altimeter measured its altitude, while a camera  
took snapshots of the lunar surface, and an onboard antenna sent this  
data to Chandrayaan-1.

A key objective during the descent was to get the first close-up views  
of the Malpert mountains.

"Malpert is an attractive region for soft landings," Ramanan told The  
Telegraph. "It is always visible from Earth and it is at an elevation  
which is good for communications with Earth."

"It is also in a region which is in near eternal light," said Mylswamy  
Annadurai, Chandrayaan-1 project director. "We have good pictures of  
the Malpert range."

None of the American Apollo missions or the Russian Luna landers had  
touched down near the Malpert mountains. The Apollo 11 astronauts Neil  
Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin had landed in a region called the Sea of  
Tranquility, very close to the lunar equator.

Isro engineers also turned on today a terrain mapping camera on the  
orbiter which will be used to generate a detailed 3D map of the lunar  
surface - every crater, every mountain.

The impactor sequence began with controllers at the Isro centre in  
Bangalore commanding Chandrayaan-1 to orient itself so that the  
impactor pointed towards the surface.

Then they directed the impactor to free itself and fired a small  
thrust rocket engine to slow it down and move it into a suborbital  
trajectory - a collision course with the moon.

Isro chairman G. Madhavan Nair, flanked by former President A.P.J.  
Abdul Kalam, said: "We have travelled all the way to Moon. We have  
given the moon to India."

Kalam said: "Landing of the MIP will kindle a dream in children. In 15  
years, I want to see an Indian on the moon."




ooroo

If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door.

Anon.