Payload bearing Tricolour will land on Moon

On November 10 or 11, the national flag will be hoisted on the Moon.

When the Moon Impact Probe (MIP), bearing the Tricolour, ej
ects from the
Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft and crashlands on the lunar surface, it will mark India’s leap into the club of countries aiming for the Moon.

“A small Indian flag (4 inches by six inches) has been painted on the moon impact probe. This is a matter of pride and honour, and when the MIP lands on the Moon, it will signal India’s entry into one of the intriguing aspects of the universe,’’ ISRO officials told TOI.

The 29-kg MIP, which was not part of the project initially, was inducted into the spacecraft at the insistence of former President A P J Abdul Kalam. The payload developed by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram will help identify future landing sites on the Moon and will also aid scientific exploration of the lunar surface.

When the MIP crash-lands on the Moon, it will kick up dust. The mass spectrometer on the payload will gather scientific details from the dust and send them back to the earth. The MIP is one of the 11 payloads on Chandrayaan-I and one of the five instruments indigenously designed and developed in India.

On October 22, the PSLVC 11, also called PSLV-XL because of the increased weight of the six strap-on motors, will soar into the sky from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota . It will travel to the vicinity of the Moon by following the lunar transfer trajectory (LTT).

When the spacecraft reaches the vicinity of the Moon, it will be slowed down through a process to enable the gravity of the Moon to capture it into its elliptical orbit.

When the orbital height of Chandrayaan-I is lowered to its intended 100-km height from the lunar surface , the MIP will be ejected from Chandrayaan-I at the earliest on to the lunar surface in a chosen area. “About 20 days from the date of launch, Chandrayaan-I will be in the required Moon orbit. So we are looking at November 8, around noon,’’ SSDC director M C Dathan said.

The spacecraft, which is being readied at another building , will be moved to the vehicle building by October 14, following which another four days of work will be carried out to couple Chandrayaan-1 with the launch vehicle. On October 18, the vehicle with the payloads will be moved to the launch pad.

Dathan allayed fears of the launch not taking place on October 22 because of rains. “Only if a cyclone occurs will there be a problem. Otherwise, even with rains, the launch will take place,’’ he said.