Chandrayaan-2 - Ambani institute working on projects

AHMEDABAD: With Chandrayaan-1 already having entered the lunar orbit, get ready for Chandrayan-2. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning its second Moon Mission, Chandrayaan-2, in 2011 in a joint venture with Russia. Chandrayaan-2 will consist of a spacecraft and a landing platform with a moon rover. And, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT) is abuzz with experiments for this second unmanned mission to the Moon. Unlike Chandrayaan-1 which will orbit the Moon at an altitude of 100 km mapping topography and the mineralogical content of the lunar soil, Chandrayaan-2 mission involves a lunar orbiting spacecraft, a lander and a rover on the Moon's surface. The rover will move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, conduct a chemical analysis and send the data to the spacecraft orbiting above. DAIICT is hard at work, developing a small device weighing around 200 gm based on sensor technology. This device will work on wireless network system to explore the presence of water on Moon's polar regions through close quarters. Prabhat Ranjan, faculty at DAIICT, says, "We have submitted our proposal to PRL. We are planning to land 30 to 40 small devices which will collect moon samples from the polar regions and pass on the data to cluster heads and then die out. It is still in a very nascent stage." "The cluster heads will sustain for a longer period and will transmit the collected data to the lunar rover or lander on the Moon surface," Ranjan adds. On the number of scientific payloads on Chandrayaan-2, J N Goswami, director, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) and mission director, Chandrayaan-1 says, "We have yet not finalized the scientific experiments for Chandrayaan-2. We have invited proposal from various institutes and organizations, but everything is still at a conceptual level." "The response for submitting proposals has been great so far. The final experiments for the mission will only be decided through detailed scientific discussions," Goswami adds.