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| Celebrate India's moon moment! |
| Tuesday October 6, 2009 |
| India's moon moment came recently when the two space agencies of India and America jointly announced that water has been found on the moon, a fact that eluded planetary researchers for the last 5 decades, despite the dozen or so human landings on the moon by the Americans. India's maiden mission to the moon Chandrayaan-1 a little before its death in August sent back invaluable information that has gotten the world on fire. It sent back surprising but clinching evidence of the widespread presence of water molecules on the moon surface, a fact that makes lunar specialists look afresh at the prevailing understanding they had of the solar system. There are no puddles, lakes or rivers of water, but a thin invisible film of water found near the poles, but with this discovery of water one can only hope we are one step closer to finding life as we know somewhere in our solar system. In an unusually bold step India launched its maiden unmanned space craft to the moon on a wet cloudy morning of October 22, 2008 from Sriharikota on the coast of the Bay of Bengal and in its first shot, the spacecraft designed and fabricated indigenously by the Indian Space Research Organization(ISRO) survived the huge odds and successfully reached the moon orbit, this in itself was a huge achievement since neither Russia or America succeeded in their maiden attempts, there were several failures even before they reached anywhere near the moon. So did India ride on the shoulders of earlier successes? Certainly not since the know-how and technologies to go to the moon are just not available for the asking, each nation has to learn on its own. India experimented and did that with complete success. The only other country to have managed a similar maiden feat was China, in its mission Chang'e-1 in 2007 which lasted 16 months in space according to the Chinese National Space Administration. The Indian mission survived for about 10 months in space, most other missions to the moon have survived much less than that. Soon after its premature termination on August 29, 2009, it was dubbed by ISRO as an 'engineering success'. Undoubtedly, India's moon mission had a rough ride around the moon. A leak from the rocket almost aborted its liftoff, within days of reaching the moon a power system failed, and a stand by system had to be kicked in. Soon, the spacecraft started overheating due to the intense summer heat on the moon and according to Nair it was deft mission management that saved it from a total burnout. The mission was literally sent on a summer vacation. A few months into the mission the spacecraft lost its fine guidance system when the onboard `star sensor' packed up in the intense radiation around the moon. But, every time an instrument on this 1380 kilogram robot gave way, mission controllers at ISRO found an innovative solution to keep the mission alive. Finally on August 29, 2009, ISRO lost all contact with Chandrayaan after a catastrophic failure possibly in its power supply system and a day later ISRO 'terminated' the mission and Nair declared that 'mission was a complete success'. The Indian mission was in certain respects much more challenging than the Chinese maiden lunar mission which was a simple national orbiter, Chandrayaan-1 was literally a two in one mission, since the main satellite was to orbit at 100 kilometers above the moon and then a tiny gadget the size of a computer monitor was to attempt a hard landing on the moon surface. India successfully did this on November 14, 2008; no nation till date had succeeded in both a lunar orbiter and an impactor in its first attempt. This was more than an experiment; it was also a brave global geo-political statement since the probe that crash landed on the moon also permanently placed India's tri-color on the moon surface, and now ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair claims the first evidence of water on the moon came from this probe way back on Children's Day in 2008, if confirmed it could be the best tribute to Late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru whose love for science has left an indelible mark on India, the spot where it landed on the moon is now renamed Jawahar Point. Having done this India became the fourth nation to have done this after Russia, America and the European Space Agency. Hugely significant because, if ever the moon's resources are to be divided India's rightful share can be claimed having achieved what others had not been able to do. There are many other firsts to this national mission that should make Indians feel proud. In a highly un-Indian trait, the Indian space agency delivered the moon mission with no cost or time over runs, cost its budgeted Rs 386 crores and launched within 5 years of its public announcement by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the ramparts of the Red Fort. No extensions of any kind were sought, none were given. The spacecraft carried 11 different sophisticated instruments, one of the largest bouquet of experiments ever to be carried to the moon and the objective was to remotely map the resources of the moon, prepare a three dimensional atlas of the moon and look for water. All instruments worked for about 10 months in the hostile environment of the moon hence it is no surprise that ISRO chairman Dr. G. Madhavan Nair calls it a `110% success of Indian technology'. A little known fact is that India did not charge any money to fly these instruments 400,000 kilometers away; all got a free ride to the moon, merely in exchange for sharing the scientific data. In collaborating with the American's, ISRO decided to forgive and forget the rocky past of the highly unpalatable technology denial regimes and sanctions that the American government continued to place on India. Remember the moon mission was planned and executed well before the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal was inked in 2008, a time of history when there was too much suspicion between the two nations, but visionary scientists did not let the babu's quash the joint desire to search for the unknown. Chandrayaan-1 was also the first and the most detailed search for water on the moon, using Radars. Till date water has never been found on the moon, and unless this life giving liquid is found colonizing the moon as has been suggested may be impossible, Chandrayaan did this intense search in its 312 day life and brought back the startling finding, though not from the Radar but from the mapper. The findings from the Radar are still cooking. India is already planning a second mission to the moon Chandrayaan-2 with Russian collaboration in 2011-12 that will dig deep in the search for water; a mission to an Asteroid; an unmanned mission to Mars by 2015; and hopefully an Indian to be launched from Indian soil using an Indian rocket, the much awaited human space flight in 2015. India's short love affair with the moon has sparked of what hopefully will be a life time of planetary explorations since there are far too many questions to be answered like where we came from and where we will end. India a new kid on the block among space faring nations has now boldly declared that this `small step for India could well be a giant leap for mankind'. Water on the moon, is indeed India's big discovery, join the party. |
Pallava Bagla, Science Editor of NDTV is a globally acclaimed science communicator. Winner of India's highest award for science journalism in 2005 and conferred the 'Outstanding Journalism' award by the United Nations in 2003. Author of several books, the latest being 'Destination Moon: India's Quest for Moon, Mars and Beyond' published by HarperCollins. His pioneering multi media campaign in making Chandrayaan-1, truly a people's mission got critical acclaim. 
