Author: Mona, New Delhi. Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft mission with its well defined objectives intends to put its spacecraft into an orbit around the moon and to perform remote sensing of it. It aims to further expand our knowledge about the moon. Thanks to the India’s scientific community for successful put off of first unmanned spacecraft- Chandrayaan-1. Chandrayaan-1: Chandrayaan-1 is a mission with vision of exploration of Moon. It is dictated by Indian national agency for space, ISRO. Under the mission a space craft launched at 6.22 a.m (IST) on 22nd October of 2009 from the Satish Dhwan Space Center situated in Sriharikota of Andhra Pradesh. Chandrayaan is a word derived from language Sanskrit and it simply means “moon-vehicle.” The weight of the space-craft is 1,308 kilograms and it carries remote sensing devices with high resolution for near infrared, visible, hard and soft frequencies of X-ray.Following are some facts about Chandrayaan-1:Launch date: October 22 at 00:52 UTCLunar orbit insertion: November 8 at 11:21 UTCNominal mission: two yearsThe total mission cost is INR 3.8 billion (US $83 million) Spacecraft: Cube shape, with a length of 1.5 meters on each side and a total mass of 1,050 kilograms (523 kilograms initial orbit mass and 440 kilograms dry mass). The satellite design is based on ISRO's Kalpansat meteorological satellite that was launched in 2002. Chandrayaan-1 will also carry a 30-kilogram probe that will penetrate the surface of the Moon. A 750-Watt solar panel together with a Lithium-Ion battery will supply power to the spacecraft. A bipropellant engine will be used to enter orbit and to maintain the spacecraft's orbit at the … [Read more...]