India's Chandrayaan-2 soon goes to the Moon. ISKCON have to face these facts!!

Svarupa · October 8, 2008

India's Chandrayaan-2 soon goes to the Moon. ISKCON have to face these facts!!

</I>

(Jagadeesh NV/EPA)

The Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe

Jeremy Page in Delhi

India is to launch its first unmanned mission to the Moon this month as it struggles to catch up with China in a 21st-century Asian version of the space race between the United States and Soviet Union.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced yesterday that it would fire a locally made rocket bearing the lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 from a launchpad in southeastern India on October 22, weather permitting.

The launch could be delayed until October 26 if conditions are not right over the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, 63 miles (125km) from the city of Madras. It was planned originally for April, but was postponed repeatedly because of technical problems with the £47 million project, which involves several foreign countries, including the United States.

The 1.38tonne spacecraft will take approximately eight days to travel about 240,000 miles before reaching its final orbit 60 miles above the surface of the Moon, ISRO officials say.

Japan sends princess on a mission to the Moon

Indians reach for the Sanskrit to give their own astronaut a name

It will then orbit for almost two years, using high-resolution remote sensing to compile a three-dimensional atlas of the Moon and analyse the composition of its surface, among other things.

It will also send a small impact probe to the surface.

Chandrayaan-1 will carry 11 payloads; five pieces of equipment from ISRO and six from foreign agencies, including Nasa and the European Space Agency. ISRO technicians will track the mission from a deep space network station in the village of Byalalu, about 25 miles from the southern city of Bangalore.

Critics say it is a waste of money for a country where 800 million out of a population of 1.1 billion live on less than $2 a day and where child malnutrition is on a par with that of sub-Saharan Africa. Advocates of India’s space programme, however, argue that ISRO makes money from commercial satellite launches and its scientific benefits have played a key role in the development of the country’s information technology industry.

They say that India is lagging far behind China, which completed its first manned space flight in 2003 and launched a lunar satellite in October last year. Last month a Chinese astronaut completed a 15-minute space walk for the first time.

ISRO, founded in 1969, is now aiming to put the first Indian into space by 2014 and to launch a manned lunar mission by 2020 – four years ahead of China’s target date. The Indian agency’s next step is to launch a second unmanned lunar mission – Chandrayaan-2 – in 2011, comprising an orbiting spacecraft, a lander and a Moon rover.

Gopal Raj, the author of a history of the Indian space programme, said ISRO’s timeframe was unrealistic, but hailed this month’s launch as a breakthrough, nonetheless. “For India, this is an important milestone,” he said. “If you want to do space exploration, the Moon is where you have to start.”

gauragopala dasa · October 9, 2008

The materialistic Indian Government will never see the ethereal world there on the moon where souls have ethereal vessels instead of biological bodies.

They also cannot see, experience or register sub-space material matter with gross material instruments designed to enhance the biological senses

X-ray camera aboard Chandrayaan to eye the Moon

9 Oct, 2008, 1604 hrs IST, AGENCIES

LONDON: A sophisticated X-ray camera made by scientists and engineers from the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is set to launch

into space on October 22nd aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft - India's first mission to the Moon.

The camera - C1XS - was designed and built at STFC Space Science and Technology Department in the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

It is an X-Ray Spectrometer that will measure X-rays to map the surface composition of the Moon which will help scientists to understand its origin and evolution, as well as quantifying the mineral resources that exist there.

C1XS was developed in conjunction with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

It employs new technology to make a compact, lightweight, sensitive instrument that can measure the abundances of chemical elements in the lunar surface, by detecting the X-rays they absorb and re-emit.

C1XS will work by looking at X-rays from the Sun, which have been absorbed by atoms in the lunar soil, then re-emitted in such a way as to reveal the chemistry of the surface.

The spectrometer is sensitive to magnesium, aluminium and silicon X-rays.

When the solar X-ray illumination is bright, for example during a solar flare, it may also be able to make measurements of other elements such as iron, titanium and calcium.

To make accurate measurements of the surface elements it is essential to measure the X-rays being produced by the Sun. C1XS has an additional detector system to measure these X-rays called the X-ray Solar Monitor (XSM), which is provided by the University of Helsinki Observatory, Finland.

Chandrayaan-1 is the first lunar mission from the Indian Space Research Organisation.

It is designed to orbit the Moon and carries radar and particle detectors as well as instruments that will make observations in the visible, near infrared and X-ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

According to Dr Ian Crawford from Birkbeck College, who chairs the C1XS Science Team, "There is still a lot we don't know about the Moon. Accurate maps of the surface composition will help us unravel its internal structure and geological history."

"Among other things, this will help us better understand the origin of the Earth-Moon system. We will also be able to learn more about what happened on the Moon since it formed and how and when it cooled. By peering into its craters, we may even be able to see below its crust to the material underneath," he added.