Chandrayaan-1 Payload Feature #4: Radiation Dose Monitor Experiment (RADOM)

Today is the fourth in a series of features on each of the Indian lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1's scientific payloads. The Chandrayaan-1 has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA).

For this edition, we look at the Radiation Dose Monitor Experiment, or RADOM, which is from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Radiation Dose Monitor Experiment (RADOM)

The RADOM is essentially looking to get results (like those pictured above) on just how much radiation there is in lunar orbit and around the surface, so future moon missions have a clearer image if just how much radiation protection is needed.

Radiation is a serious problem for potential colonists, and as that article notes, NASA is including radiation experiments in its own lunar orbiter mission, the LRO (coming next year).

""We really need to know more about the radiation environment on the Moon, especially if people will be staying there for more than just a few days," says Harlan Spence, a professor of astronomy at Boston University."
-"Radioactive Moon", by Patrick L. Barry, NASA

The Apollo astronauts were never out in the radiation for long, so creative solutions are needed to shield long-term settlement. But, first, it needs to be known just how much radiation there is to shield from; and the RADOM is a big step towards that.

For all the full scientific details on the payload straight from the Bulgarians, check out this document. :)
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Keep checking back here for more payload features, Chandrayaan-1 news, and a complete wealth of updates and information about the base race, private space boom, and everything else with the true introduction of Man to Luna :)

Chandrayaan-1 Payload Feature #3: Moon Impact Probe (MIP)

Today is the third in a series of features on each of India's recently-launched Chandrayaan-1's scientific payloads. The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA).

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA). For this edition, we look at an Indian payload that made headlines with its recent success: the Moon Impact Probe (MIP).

Moon Impact Probe (MIP)

The 35kg MIP was designed to demonstrate, through its 25-minute flight to the lunar surface from the Chandrayaan orbiter, technologies for making both soft and hard landings (the MIP's descent was a hard landing, hitting the surface of the Moon at a solid 3,100 miles an hour). Arriving on the lunar surface at 20:06 on November 14th, 2008, the MIP delivered an Indian tricolor flag (on its hull) to Luna.

The MIP itself had three payloads of its own:

• Radar Altimeter – As the ISRO themselves put it: "for measurement of altitude of the Moon Impact Probe and for qualifying technologies for future landing missions. The operating frequency band is 4.3 GHz ± 100 MHz."
  
• Video Imaging System – Fairly self-explanatory, this took images as the probe approached the surface, including the two below:
  
  
• Mass Spectrometer – Measured the lunar atmosphere's composition, with a mass resolution of 0.5 amu and sensitivities to partial pressure of the order of 10-14 torr.

All in all, the MIP was a great success, making India one of the select few nations to have landed (hard or soft) a craft on the moon.

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Keep checking back here for more payload features, Chandrayaan-1 news, and a complete wealth of news and information about the private space boom and 'base race' :)

India's Chandrayaan Flags the Moon

I've been flagging "Chandrayaan" on a lot of my moon posts as of late, but now the Chandrayaan-1 has done me one better, flagging something itself: the Moon.

The craft's Moon Impact Probe, carrying the Indian Tricolour (pictured above) on its side, landed on the Moon on Friday, making India the fifth (or fourth; videos seems to state fourth, but that linked article from the India Times states fifth) world entity (after the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the 17-nation ESA) to reach the surface of the Moon.

That is a picture the Moon Impact Probe took before impact (from the India Times); the prode landed just 32km from the all-important Shackleton Crater near the South Pole, a very likely location for a future full-fledged colony or colonies (due to its rim being a Peak of Eternal Light, a.k.a. eternal solar power and other benefits). So its likely that future colonists (robotic or otherwise) will come across, or at least take field trips to, this Indian tricolor in the future :)

Below is a great video from CCTV on the Probe's landing, which rather interestingly, also confirms the active Indian interest in helium-3 (something not mentioned in the official ISRO Moon Impact Probe page):

Chandrayaan-1 Payload Feature #2: Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA)

Today is the second in a series of features on each of India's recently-launched Chandrayaan-1's scientific payloads.

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA). Today is the first look at one of the foriegn payloads: the Swedish Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA).

Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA)

SARA is a device mainly to study the magnetosphere (or in the case of the Moon, the lack thereof) and solar wind interactions with the lunar surface.

Developed through the ESA in collaboration with the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and the Indian ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, the payload itself is of Swedish development while the data processing unit is Indian.

Solar wind experiments were peformed on the lunar surface during many of the Apollo missions (11, 12, 14, 15, and 16); they analyzed the chemical components of lunar surface in relation to the solar wind, and found that the lunar surface had been enriched with atomic nuclei, including helium-3, a major motivator behind this current base race.

While details on the SARA's mission are vague, the impression that I get is that the SARA's additional solar wind analysis, going by the above connection between solar wind and the all-important helium-3, could yield interesting information regarding the chemical composition of the moon, possibly for mining purposes (helium and otherwise). So, perhaps, the result of this seemingly unassuming device could end up being commercially significant.

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Check back within the next couple of days for the next feature, on another of the Indian payloads, as well as for any other updates on the moon mission's progress that may come along :). You can find the first payload feature (and all the features as they'll be posted) here.

Chandrayaan-1 Payload Spotlight #1: Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC)

Today is the first in a series of features on each of India's recently-launched Chandrayaan-1's scientific payloads.

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter (which just Saturday reached lunar orbit) has 11 scientific instruments onboard to complete an array of measurements: five Indian instruments, and six from other nations and organizations (including the ESA and NASA). Japan and China launched similar missions last year, but not with foreign instruments onboard.

This chart below, from the ISRO, shows what types of 'coverage' the payloads as a unit have:

As I cover each of the eleven payloads in individual posts over the next few weeks, I'm going to alternate between the Indian and foreign payloads.

Without further ado, here's your spotlight on the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC).

Terrain Mapping Camera

An Indian instrument, the first payload being featured here was also the first one to be tested.

It's mostly as it sounds: a high-resolution camera that can take black and white photographs of the lunar surface (with a 5m spatial resolution--"the ability to distinguish between two closely spaced objects on an image"--in 20km swaths[PDF] ), with the intent to map the entire topography of the moon (including the dark side and the poles) at that 5m resolution; creating the most high-resolution, detailed map of the lunar surface to date. Such maps exist of Mars, but not of the Moon.

NASA's Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission set for next year will have similar, if more powerful, camera and mapping systems. These kinds of maps will clearly be useful for the planning stages of the eventual lunar colonies and for other efforts.

The power of the TMC could well be enough to finally settle one thing for NASA ahead of time, though: it could photograph the Apollo and other NASA craft on the Moon's surface, hopefully putting all those conspiracy theories to rest. :)

Here's a picture from the ISRO of the TMC itself:

And, last but not least, one of the test images the camera took of Earth (high resolution here):

For every technical detail you ever wanted to know about the TMC, see this PDF.

Check back within the next couple of days for the next feature, on one of the Chandrayaan-1's foreign payloads, as well as for any other updates on the moon mission's progress that may come along :)

Video: India's Chandrayaan-1 Moon Orbiter

Below is a neat video from the ESA (European Space Agency) on India's recently launched moon mission, the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter.

The ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) itself has a 30-minute video online about the Chandrayaan-1, as well, so there's plenty of video to go around to get caught up on India's hip moon mission :)

Chandrayaan-1 Update: Terrain Mapping Tested

Click that image above for the whopping full-size image of Earth that the recently launched Indian lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 took with one of its 11 payloads, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC).

Check out the press release for the official take, as well as these neat articles. This was a test of the TMC, which is one of five Indian payloads on the Chandrayaan-1 (the other six being international, including two through NASA).

I'm going to be doing a series of individual spotlights on all eleven payloads as the Chandrayaan-1 makes its way out of its current Earth orbit and towards the Moon, so keep an eye here for the first installment of that very soon :)