Landing at the Moon with Chadrayaan-1: a challenge for India’s private space research enterprise and its impact on the lunar mission
Landing at the Moon’s south pole is difficult because it involves positioning the spacecraft at a different angle from previous landings, and the area has rough terrain.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which made an unsuccessful attempt to land on the moon with Chandrayaan 2, had a lot to be happy about. There is a communication link with the landers and a picture of the ramp being deployed for the rover to roll onto the lunar surface.
India’s success instills confidence in the technological competence of India’s space industry, says Kavya Karampuri, a mission systems engineer at Bengaluru-based company KaleidEO, which specializes in Earth-observation-based space data analytics. It could attract global investments in the Indian private space sector, foster international collaboration, and innovation across universities, labs, start-ups, and research communities in India, says Karampuri.
The landing “gives confidence to configure missions to go to the Moon, Mars, Venus, maybe even asteroids”, ISRO chairman S. Somanath told a press briefing.
These include a new laser sensor to measure the real-time velocity of the spacecraft relative to the Moon, algorithms to handle unanticipated deviations in propulsion or trajectory and better judge the landing terrain, bigger and more solar panels, more fuel, a heavier lander equipped with four sturdier legs to handle a faster landing velocity.
In particular, it requires putting the spacecraft into a polar orbit that is at right angles to the Moon’s orbit, says Norman. The additional energy to move the spacecraft into an unnatural position introduces uncertainties to critical aspects such as velocity and location of the satellite.
Lack of sufficiently detailed data on the region’s gravity and surface characteristics compound the problem, says Norman. “For example, if the spacecraft lands in a crater, on a slope, or the leg of the lander catches on a boulder, the mission could be compromised.”
Moon quakes near the area add complexity, says geologist Saumitra Mukherjee at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, whose team analysed images sent by India’s first lunar mission, Chadrayaan-1, which launched in 2008 and detected cliffs and signs of displaced underground rocks in two craters near the lunar south pole.
Poor lighting from the Sun is a challenge. Torin Clark, an engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that some parts of the country are completely dark and others are in the light. “This is in contrast to the Apollo landings, where the landing sites and timing were specifically chosen to ensure quality lighting of the lunar terrain” such as rocks and craters.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission in India: the triumph of India’s space agency Roscosmos and of its philologists Narendra Modi
The Chandrayaan-4 mission is scheduled to launch in the first week of September, approximately a week before the first one to study the Sun.
A small rover has just been deployed by the landing module named after a physicist regarded as the founder of India’s space programme. The solar powered mission is supposed to last at least two weeks until lunar night arrives.
Yury Borisov, director-general of Russian space agency Roscosmos, told state media this week that Russia’s Moonshot failure happened because the country’s lunar programme had been interrupted for almost five decades, hollowing out the expertise needed to make it to the Moon. ISRO, by contrast, has steadily built on its achievements, including ramping up its engineering talent, although it has declined to reveal how much — or how little — it spent on Chandrayaan-3.
Narendra Modi said that this success was for all of humanity as he joined millions of people in watching the final descent. It is a monumental achievement for India’s scientists and engineers.