Curiosity

Moon is our closest cosmic body and so its natural that mankind is fascinated by it and wants to explore it. India is the 6th country besides USA, USSR, Japan, China and the European Space Agency to have visited the moon and first to have tried landing on the lunar south pole. The lunar south pole is of special interest because a large part of this side of the moon remains in darkness always, creating cold traps which might contain the fossil records of our Solar System.

Chandrayaan 1- A legacy

It was in 2008 on 22nd October, when Chandrayaan 1 took off from the Satish Dhawan Space centre at Sriharikota and on 14th Nov 2008 its moon impact probe crashed (hard-landed) near the lunar south pole. Among its many objectives achieved, the most important feat was the discovery of the presence of water molecules on moon's surface. The programme came to an end on 28th August 2009.

Chandrayaan 2- Expanding Horizons

Chandrayan-2 a shimmering golden spacecraft took off for the moon from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre launch pad on 22nd July 2019 at 2:43 pm. and was expected to make a soft landing on the moon in the wee hours of 7th September on the Lunar south pole.

It would have made India the fourth country to have been able to soft land on the moon.

From Earth to the moon, mission Chandrayaan 2 consists of a launcher and the spacecraft. The space craft consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover.

• Launcher - The GSLV Mk III [Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III] will take Chandrayaan 2 to its planned Earth orbit.
• Lunar Orbiter - The Chandrayaan 2 orbiter will stay in the moons orbit and will serve as a link between the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu and the Lander - Vikram
• Lander - Vikram the lander named after the ISRO founder Dr Vikram Sarabhai has been designed to accomplish a soft landing on the lunar surface. It will be able to communicate with IDSN, the Orbiter as well as the Lunar Rover - Pragyan.
• Lunar Rover - Pragyan, which means wisdom in Sanskrit, is a 6-wheeled, solar powered rover. It will move around lunar surface performing various chemical analysis and sending data through the lander.



Chandrayan 2 is indeed a leap ahead in lunar exploration. To summarise a few points that make it special:

• It's the first space mission to try soft landing closest to the southern pole of the moon.
• It's the first Indian lunar expedition which is a complete home-grown technology.
• It's the first Indian mission to explore the lunar surface with a technology which is entirely home-grown.

The high risk, high complexity and the first of its kind mission, the Chandrayaan 2 mission's Vikram lander went silent just 2.1 km above the moon's surface. The Chandrayaan-2 mission's orbiter is safely positioned in the lunar orbit and will be sending useful and relevant data for the next one to two years to come.

Physicist Kalpathi Ramakrishna Ramanathan

ISRO which was known as INCSR or The Indian National Committee for Space Research way back in 1962, was formed under the leadership of the Father of India's Space Programme - Vikram Sarabhai and the renowned physicist Kalpathi Ramakrishna Ramanathan.

K R Ramanathan, an eminent physicist and a meteorologist was born in the Kalpathy Village, Palghat, Kerala State on February 28, 1893.

His father, Ramakrishna Sastrigal was a learned astrologer and a Sanskrit scholar.

Having completed his B.A.(Hons.) and M.A. in Physics from Presidency College, Madras, in 1921 he collaborated as a doctoral student with Dr C V Raman on studies of Molecular scattering of light in liquids and its vapours. His association with metrology started at the Indian Metrological Department and continued for next 20 years, conducting studies in various disciplines of atmosphere notably geo-magnetism and solar physics.

At the age of 55 Ramanathan joined the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) as its first director, which played an important role as the cradle of the early Indian Space Programme, testing the sounding rockets and helping to develop the TERLS or Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station, from which Nike-Apache rocket supplied by NASA was launched in 1963, allowing India to put its first signature in space programmes.

Professor Ramanathan has been awarded many honours at various times of his life like the International Meteorological Organization Prize in 1961, Padma Bhushan in1965, Padma Vibhushan in 1976 and the Aryabhatta Medal in1977.

We lost this great physicist in 1984, known as a modest, wise and serene gentleman.