Chandrayaan Maps Landing Sites Of Apollos & 1st Human Steps On Moon
Pune: India’s maiden moon mission, Chandrayaan-I, zoomed into the memory lane as it mapped the landing sites of the six Apollo missions that were launched between July 1969 and December 1972.
Among the flights was Apollo 11 which created history in space exploration, taking on board Neil Armstrong, the first human to step on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969.
Talking to TOI, P Sreekumar, a space scientist who quit his job in the US to be a part of the Indian moon mission, said the mapping process began on January 7 and was completed on Saturday. It includes the landing sites of Apollo 12, 14, 15 and 17, besides the historic mission.
“Our purpose of carrying out this exercise was to validate and confirm through global mapping the data about moon’s surface and rocks, which had been obtained by these Apollo flights,’’ said Sreekumar, who is in Pune to participate in the inauguration of the International Year of Astronomy programme at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics.
He added that the mapping was done by six of the 11 scientific payloads on board Chandrayaan, which included the indigenous Terrain Mapping Camera and the Hyper Spectral Imaging Camera. Among the others are Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, Radom from Bulgaria and the Near Infra-Red Spectrometer (Sir-2) of Germany.
Sreekumar further explained that despite the Chandrayaan flying in the north-south polar orbit, it was successfully covering the entire lunar surface and tracking the Apollo landing sites, which were located on the equatorial region of the moon.
The Sub-Kev Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA), a payload of the ESA from the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, the Space Physics Laboratory and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvanathanapuram, was activated on board the Chandrayaan this week.
The role of this equipment is to image the moon’s surface composition, including the permanently shadowed areas, study the solar wind interaction and carry out studies connected with space weathering.
Srinivas Laxman | TNN
Pune: India’s maiden moon mission, Chandrayaan-I, zoomed into the memory lane as it mapped the landing sites of the six Apollo missions that were launched between July 1969 and December 1972.
Among the flights was Apollo 11 which created history in space exploration, taking on board Neil Armstrong, the first human to step on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969.
Talking to TOI, P Sreekumar, a space scientist who quit his job in the US to be a part of the Indian moon mission, said the mapping process began on January 7 and was completed on Saturday. It includes the landing sites of Apollo 12, 14, 15 and 17, besides the historic mission.
“Our purpose of carrying out this exercise was to validate and confirm through global mapping the data about moon’s surface and rocks, which had been obtained by these Apollo flights,’’ said Sreekumar, who is in Pune to participate in the inauguration of the International Year of Astronomy programme at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics.
He added that the mapping was done by six of the 11 scientific payloads on board Chandrayaan, which included the indigenous Terrain Mapping Camera and the Hyper Spectral Imaging Camera. Among the others are Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, Radom from Bulgaria and the Near Infra-Red Spectrometer (Sir-2) of Germany.
Sreekumar further explained that despite the Chandrayaan flying in the north-south polar orbit, it was successfully covering the entire lunar surface and tracking the Apollo landing sites, which were located on the equatorial region of the moon.
The Sub-Kev Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA), a payload of the ESA from the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, the Space Physics Laboratory and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvanathanapuram, was activated on board the Chandrayaan this week.
The role of this equipment is to image the moon’s surface composition, including the permanently shadowed areas, study the solar wind interaction and carry out studies connected with space weathering.
TOTAL RECALL: The Indian moon mission is also tracing the landing site of Apollo 11, which took on board Neil Armstrong, the first human to land on the lunar surface
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