Re: china manned space - news and views
I won't generalize a country and call it a farce period. At least they were able to send a probe to the moon with all the trajectory calculations and controls therein. Still you are right, some of the boosters are made in Russia, and the particular moon probe has more than half of its payload coming from other countries.
STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: October 22, 2008
The $80 million mission is India's answer to a pair of lunar missions launched last year by Japan and China. Both countries' moon orbiters are still collecting imagery and scientific data.
But unlike the Japanese and Chinese missions, India invited large contributions from other nations to put instruments on Chandrayaan 1. Scientists from Europe and the United States answered the call.
More than half of the probe's 11 instruments come from outside India. The European Space Agency spent $8 million to fund three payloads, while NASA provided two more sensors. Bulgarian scientists also contributed a radiation monitor to the mission.
The payloads will be turned on and tested by the end of November before the spacecraft begins an operational mission lasting at least two years, officials said.
Scientists expect data from Chandrayaan 1 to help create the most detailed global chemical map of the moon showing mineral concentrations across the lunar surface. Researchers will also make a three-dimensional terrain map of the moon based on information yielded by the mission.
"We are going to look at the moon slightly differently than the people who are looking at it (now). We're looking at the moon very systematically," said Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan 1 project director at ISRO. "We're going to make a repository of the whole moon and its contents."
ESA's three instruments come from teams led by scientists in the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden.
"In an era of renewed interest for the moon on a worldwide scale, the ESA-ISRO collaboration on Chandrayaan 1 is a new opportunity for Europe to expand its competence in lunar science while tightening the long-standing relationship with India - an ever stronger space power," said David Southwood, ESA director of science and robotic exploration.
The ESA-funded X-ray and near-infrared imaging spectrometers, called C1XS and SIR 2, will detect mineral signatures in soil on and just below the lunar surface. Both instruments are based on similar sensors that flew aboard Europe's SMART 1 spacecraft, which was deliberately crashed into the moon in 2006.
"European scientists will have the fantastic opportunity to continue our work on the moon," said Detlef Koschny, ESA's Chandrayaan 1 project scientist.
Europe's instruments aboard Chandrayaan 1 will work closely with other countries' payloads to help fill in the blanks in what scientists know about the moon.
"The Apollo missions went down to the surface, but only in a limited number of spots, whereas Chandrayaan tries to do detailed imaging of the entire sphere of the moon," said Christian Erd, ESA's Chandrayaan 1 project manager.
SARA, the other ESA payload, will observe solar wind particles contacting the moon's surface to study its effects on the top layer of soil.
NASA provided a pair of instruments, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper and the MiniSAR radar, as part of the agency's effort to return to robotic exploration of the moon.
"The opportunity to fly NASA instruments on Chandrayaan 1 undoubtedly will lead to important scientific discoveries," said Michael Griffin, NASA administrator. "This exciting collaboration represents an important next step in what we hope to be a long and mutually beneficial relationship with India in future civil space exploration."
The Moon Mineralogy Mapper, nicknamed M3, is a visual and near-infrared imaging spectrometer designed to plot mineral resources at higher resolutions than any instrument before. M3 scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory hope the device will help them create mineral maps to find science-rich landing sites for future missions.
M3 will also look for direct evidence of pockets of water ice hidden inside craters near the lunar poles. Scientists believe there are frozen water deposits deep within the eternally dark craters due to high concentrations of hydrogen found there on previous missions.
The MiniSAR payload was developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The instrument will bounce radar beams off the lunar surface to look for signs of water ice packed inside the walls of deep craters near the moon's poles.
The combination of data from the M3 and MiniSAR instruments will allow researchers to determine how many craters could harbor the frozen water, NASA officials said.
