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Deep Impact TOI Edit 17 Nov 2008

As planned, at exactly 8.06 p.m. IST on Friday the indigenously built Moon Impact Probe (MIP) detached itself from the spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 as it flew over the Malarpet mountain on the Moon. Twenty-five minutes later and revolving like a top to stabilise its descent, the instrument console about the size of a large television set with the tricolour painted on it hard-landed in a place called the Shackleton crater in the south polar region. With this India becomes only the fifth country in the world after the US, Russia, EU and Japan to have successfully sent an artefact to the Moon's surface.

Yes, to an extent, the whole mission is also symbolic. For instance, it's a great shot in the arm for national pride to know that even China hasn't done something like this as yet. More importantly, though, it's a symbol of India's growing presence in space both in near-Earth remote sensing and communication satellite orbits to nearly 4,00,000 kilometres away in deep space using workhorse launchers like the PSLV which now have an enviable record of flawless lift-offs, including the latest one.

But Chandrayaan-1 and its impact probe aren't merely technical demos. The MIP is actually the forerunner of a lunar rover vehicle to be soft-landed by Chandrayaan-2 sometime in 2012 or 2013 and, as such, had to test critical technologies and functions necessary for such an operation. It also had to demonstrate the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) capability of sending a probe at a pre-planned time and precise location on the Moon for scientific exploration and sampling at ground level. Chandrayaan-1 will meanwhile be preparing a high resolution three-dimensional atlas of both near and far side of the Moon and conducting chemical and mineralogical mapping of the entire lunar surface, including looking for water.

The fact that India can achieve all this at a fraction of the cost that space agencies of other countries incur means that in the future it would make sense for them to outsource at least a part of their own exploratory ventures to India as indeed they've already started doing for some time now with satellites that ride piggyback on PSLVs. As soon as the economics of this business start working out, ISRO can be minting money. How many other government R&D organisations who have been floundering on their own antediluvian development schemes for decades can boast of such success?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/yearendershow/3719773.cms

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