India's maiden shot at the moon is now all set for lift off in the last week of October. Named Chandrayaan-1 the satellite has just passed a crucial test which simulated how the space craft would perform in the hostile vacuum like environment near the moon.

According to the Indian space agency, India's first mission to the moon is to be launched sometime around October 22-26, 2008 from the coast of the Bay of Bengal. It will be lofted up using the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) workhorse rocket the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the mission is likely to cost Rupees 386 crores. Chandrayaan-I is an unmanned scientific mission designed to map the resources of the moon and would undertake the most intense search for water on the moon surface.

It is complex multi-continent space mission where many countries are co-operating in this two-year remote sensing mission to the moon, a task that that India is spearheading. Instruments from India, USA, UK, European Space Agency and Bulgaria are being flown.

Soon after the Chandrayaan reaches the designated lunar orbit among its first tasks will be to send an Indian tri-color down to the moon surface as part of a unique Indian instrument called the 'moon impactor probe', which is actually a small rocket that will detach from the orbiting satellite and crash land on the moon surface.

The Chandrayaan-1 satellite will be transported to the Indian space port at Sriharikota by the end of the month, but before that it still has to undergo some more final tests.