ManagementNow Chandrayaan-II will have Indian rover
ISRO initially planned to have Russian lander, rover for project.
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With India seeing the first success from the maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-I with the ‘discovery’ of water on the moon, the Indian space agency has taken a key decision to have its own rover for the Chandrayaan-II mission, in addition to the rover from Russia. This is being seen as a step forward as the rover will be a key instrument that will dig on the lunar soil to obtain the scientific data.
When the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) decided to go ahead with Chandrayaan-II, the original plan was to procure the rover from Russia as part of the collaboration.
“We wanted to divide the work as part of our understanding with Russia. As part of this, we will have an Indian rover and a Russian rover. We have identified a team of scientists who worked on Chandrayaan-I project to develop the rover in-house,” M Annadurai, project director of Chandrayaan-I and Chandrayaan-II mission told Business Standard.
Scheduled to be launched in 2013, Chandrayaan-II mission would have an orbital flight vehicle constituting an Orbital Craft (OC) and a Lunar Craft (LC) that would carry a soft landing system up to Lunar Transfer Trajectory (LTT). ISRO has been allocated Rs 426 crore for this project, which includes the cost of the launch vehicle, GSLV.
Annadurai said ISRO is setting up a separate facility in Bangalore for testing of the rover. The centre will have a facility that will mimic the lunar terrain and conditions. The facility will also be used for testing of the Russian made rover and lander before they were fitted with the Chandrayaan-II spacecraft. “We are planning to set up an integrated test facility to test the lander and rover,” he added.
Following the findings of water on lunar surface by the Chandrayaan-I mission, ISRO is also looking for further midcourse correction of the Chandrayaan-II mission.
“Following findings of Chandrayaan I, it would have to now look at midcourse correction of its objectives. We have to fine tune it. There is some loud thinking on the issue going on,” ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair had told earlier. ISRO has already completed the design of the Chandrayaan-II spacecraft. Quite interestingly, unlike the Chandrayaan-I when ISRO could not get enough proposal from India to carry scientific instruments on board Chandrayaan-I, the space agency has received good response from both Indian and international scientific community. “We have got nearly 20 proposals for carrying the instruments on board Chandrayaan-II, even before we made a formal announcement evincing the interest. But unlike Chandrayaan-I, we won’t be able to carry so many instruments. Besides, we plan to carry as much as indegenised instruments as possible this time,” Annadurai added.
In the initial stage, about 200 scientists are working with the Chandrayaan-II project. The number will keep increasing in a latter stage and “it might require the whole of ISRO to work for the project”.
“Now since it is just a planning aspect, I don’t have more than 200 people with me. Once the configuration starts and instruments come in, we will have more people with us,” he added.