India to leave mark on the moon

On his nightly stroll, G Madhavan Nair, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), used to gaze at the moon for its luminous beauty. Now, whenever he hears the word ‘moon', which he does hundreds of times a day, he thinks of the 1,304-kg spacecraft carrying the 29-kg moon impact probe that will crash land on the lunar surface, just days after PSLV-C11 takes off at 6.20 am on October 22.

Nair told STOI that he'll start to gaze at the moon once again, but with a very real professional interest, "when our mission reaches there." At present, he's busy preparing for the "big event". He says he has no time to look at the moon because "I have to look at the thousand engineers and technicians who have been working on this for three years. For the last three weeks, they've been working round the clock."

Senior ISRO scientists, including Nair, PSLV-C11 project director George Koshi and VSSC director K Radhakrishnan, have been shuttling between their offices across the country and the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, an island by the sea, 100 km north of Chennai. On Saturday, a ‘dress rehearsal' was held. The 45-metre PSLV-C11 was taken out of the vehicle assembly building to the umbilical tower of launch pad (No. 2), about 600 m away, and brought back.

Even as a team of 120 engineers and technicians from VSSC Thiruvananthapuram monitors the launch vehicle, another 75-member team is conducting vehicle assembly and static tests (VAST). A core group of 50 scientists and technicians from Bangalore's Satellite Centre is closely monitoring the spacecraft's health.

"The real action begins at 2.20 am Monday when the 52-hour countdown begins," says a scientist. "About 13 hours before the launch, the liquid propellant will be filled. After that, it's a second-by-second monitoring of precision." As PSLV-C11 stands majestically near the launch pad, 5 km from mission control, Madhavan Nair is composed, but cautious.

"This is a complex and difficult mission. For the first time, we are going beyond gravity and into lunar orbit. We've been simulating the manoeuvres for almost two years," he says. He says the weather, with the onset of the North-East monsoon, may be the biggest worry of them all. "We have a window period from October 22 to 28. Hope everything goes well."

The local population is cheering on Operation Moon. "I have seen many launches, but this time it's the moon we are aiming at," says a woman who has a shop at the space centre gates. Shafiullah, a 28-year-old fisherman from Navipet village, 16 km away, says a launch means no work for him, as fishermen aren't allowed to venture out to sea. "But we don't mind that," he says, "We're thrilled at the thought of India leaving its mark on the moon." At the Space Centre School, young boys argue over the chances of the moon probe landing or crashing on the lunar surface. Moon gazing has become everybody's business.