Gizmodo: chandrayaan-1

Indian Probe Takes Clear Photo of Apollo 15, Hopefully Smashing Conspiracy Theories Forever

Jesus Diaz — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:30:00 EDT

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took photos of the Apollo landings last July. They were supposed to end all conspiracy theories, but there are still idiots who said they were false. Thankfully, the Indians took their own photo. Spot the tracks!

Click images to enlarge.

This image was one of the last photographs sent by Chandrayaan-1, the moon probe that stopped communicating with Earth last Saturday. It clearly shows the Apollo 15 rover tracks on the Moon surface.

So there you go: A third party confirms the landings. Happy now, you conspiracy retards? No? I don't care. Just stop writing stupid emails justifying your idiotic arguments trying to prove that Armstrong didn't walk on the moon (because he did, and he has the photo and the t-shirt to prove it). [The Times of India]

Indian Lunar Probe Crashes On Moon Surface

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST

After a 25-minute descent, Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe has successfully crashed on the Moon's surface, taking images of the descent like these ones and making yet another man-made hole on the battered Earth's satellite.

The Moon Impact Probe (MIP), one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, successfully hit the lunar surface today at 20:31 hrs (8:31 pm) IST. This is the first Indian built object to reach the surface of the moon. The point of MIP’s impact was near the Moon’s South Polar Region. It may be recalled that the modern Indian space programme was initiated in 1962 when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of India.
Weighing 34 kg at the time of its launch onboard Chandrayaan-1, the box shaped MIP carried three instruments – a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system was intended to take the pictures of the moon’s surface as MIP approached it. The radar altimeter was included to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface. Such instruments are necessary for future lunar soft landing missions. And, the mass spectrometer was for studying the extremely thin lunar atmosphere.

MIP’s 25 minute journey to the lunar surface began with its separation from Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft at 20:06 hrs (8:06 pm) IST. This was followed by a series of automatic operations that began with the firing of its spin up rockets after achieving a safe distance of separation from Chandrayaan-1. Later, the probe slowed down with the firing of its retro rocket and started its rapid descent towards the moon’s surface. Information from the its instruments was radioed to Chandrayaan-1 by MIP. The spacecraft recorded this in its onboard memory for later readout. Finally, the probe had a hard landing on the lunar surface that terminated its functioning.

The Moon Impact Probe hit the moon last November 14 at 20:31 IST near the Moon's South Polar Region. [ISRO]

NASA Returns to the Moon as Indian Spacecraft Stowaway

Jesus Diaz — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:00:00 EDT

The Chandrayaan-1, literally "Lunar Craft", launched today from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, on the southeastern coast of India. The spacecraft will orbit the Moon for two years, charting its mineral composition, searching for ice, and helium-3, all three fundamental for the establishment of a lunar outpost. Or a call center. It can go either way. Chandrayaan-1 is India's first mission to our satellite, and it's also NASA's return to the moon after the Apollo missions:

Two NASA instruments to map the lunar surface will launch on India's maiden moon voyage. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper will assess mineral resources, and the Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar, or Mini-SAR, will map the polar regions and look for ice deposits.

Apart from these two NASA instruments and three European Space Agency instruments, the Chandrayaan-1 is carrying the C1XS, an X-ray Spectrometer to get high-quality, X-ray spectroscopic mapping of the Moon, a near infrared spectrometer called SIR-2 to study the chemical composition of the Moons crust and mantle, and SARA, the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyser which will study plasma-surface interactions in space for the first time. [ISRO and NASA]