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The ISRO, even after several months of delays, launched an unmanned lunar orbiter

India successfully joined a select group of nations involved in an unofficial space race to help study the moon, as the country launched an unmanned lunar orbiter into space.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched the Chandrayaan-1, meaning "moon craft" in ancient Sanskrit, into orbit from a launch facility in southern India.

"It's a historic moment, as far as India is concerned...  We have started our journey to the moon and the first leg of the journey has gone perfectly well," ISRO president Madhavan Nair said.  "It's a remarkable performance by the launch vehicle, every parameter was on the dot... Today what we have started is a remarkable journey for the Indian spacecraft to go to the moon and try to unravel the mysteries of the moon."

Chandrayaan-1 will orbit 60 miles above the moon's surface, while documenting its surface and chemical characteristics.

ISRO hopes this first launch will help the nation launch future lunar missions that can help researchers learn more about the moon and its origin.  ISRO hopes to one day launch a manned mission to the moon, but admitted that it would take years before it is able to develop the necessary technologies.

ISRO hopes to launch another moon mission in 2012, as the space agency continues to develop the necessary infrastructure for a manned moon mission.

"Earlier missions did not come out with a full understanding of the moon and that is the reason scientists are still interested.  This will lay the foundation for bigger missions and also open up new possibilities of international networking and support for planetary programs," the ISRO said in a statement published on its web site.

Before the launch of Chandrayaan-1, most of the country's satellite launches were weather and communications satellites.

The Indian economy has exploded the past few years, and has allowed the country to begin developing a high-tech sector that was virtually non-existent just a few years ago.  Even with the economic prosperity, many critics said the government should have used the estimated $80 million to help improve education in struggling areas.

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Great!
By Spivonious on 10/23/2008 9:36:48 AM , Rating: 2
It's great to see other countries investing time and money into studying space. Perhaps with our combined efforts we can finally figure out that warp drive. :)




RE: Great!
By Felofasofa on 10/23/2008 9:47:37 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
Perhaps with our combined efforts we can finally figure out that warp drive. :)
Well either that or have call centres on the Moon.


RE: Great!
By Fnoob on 10/23/2008 10:01:44 AM , Rating: 2
Call centres.... well, at least they can understand their tech support.


RE: Great!
By pandyamuks on 10/23/2008 11:10:26 AM , Rating: 1
Another ignorant racist.
mate I invite you to visit India and some places you will be amazed to see what they have achived.
Indians are not Junkies surviving on call centres. lame people are like you only know to disgrace someone elses and whine all year round.
Texas Instruments has their R&D in India since 30 yrs, your NASA has highest pool of Indian scientist, your latest Intest processor VLSI and hardware design is coming from India.
Its just a shame to see how u guys discrimate India.
Actually my many visits to America including major cities has not been so great.. the worst ignorant and whingers if you want to find you can find in Boston and Chicago.. when will you learn to digest the tech. capacity of India...
losers


RE: Great!
By Spivonious on 10/23/2008 11:17:43 AM , Rating: 3
I agree with you, although you must understand that we are a bit jaded from the failed Dell tech support experiment.

And from my experiences at least, there are a lot of "programmers" from India that have no clue what they are doing. It seems like they just hand out IT degrees over there.


RE: Great!
By pandyamuks on 10/23/2008 11:27:24 AM , Rating: 2
I invite you to study in Engrr colleges in India.
Mate, if thats the case I challege you to be successful in India like lot of Indians have succeded in foreign countries.
Stop discrimating; your normal whine is about taking jobs or Indian companies targeting foreign comapnies for takeover... you will be amazed India is responsible for 60% of foregin investment in UK alone and has generated more than 2600 jobs in last one year alone...
I am not sure what your capacity is in matter of technical, but I have done my degree in Mumbai and I have gain enough respect in matter of technical while few years in the US and now settled in Melbourne..
just accept the fact that India is doing for its civilian and to build tech. expertise at the same time sharing the tech. knowhow with other counteries for joint collabaration unlike some asian giants who use it for military, steathly vicious purpose and to prove their hegemony acorss the world...
In past US and EU have tried putting an embargo over techonology which resulted in India building its own super computer Param2000 and now they have given a clean chit to India for nukes... the time has come to accept a socially responsible partner in the world unlike other asian countries...


RE: Great!
By dexAtGlasgow on 10/23/2008 12:15:32 PM , Rating: 2
The US has achieved a lot and so has India, China and everyone else. If you face criticism, take it in the positive light and explain if the other person has the capacity to understand else ignore. As for Pandya's many comments, I think it is probably because of Indians like him who don't even know what they're typing with so many spelling mistakes(plus their claim of coming from a technical background with a name like Mumbai University) that even a kindergarten student wouldn't want to believe them no matter how much they blow their own trumpet.

Anyway, coming back to the discussion, am sure you'll agree with me that every country has a certain "budget" for each sector/agency/activity. If the have-nots don't have it because of the corrupt people they voted for(or didn't care to vote at all), it would be illogical to allow a research agency's budget to be eaten into by any other department's voracious appetite. Everyone has a budget and it's ok as long as they spend it to achieve the best results which I think ISRO has definitely done when you compare its mission's cost to deliverables/results ratio with similar space programmes of other nations.


RE: Great!
By Spivonious on 10/23/2008 12:38:16 PM , Rating: 3
I'm not trying to come off as being against Indians. I'm sure there are plenty of smart people there, just as there are plenty of smart people in every developed country.

I'm just saying that of the Indians I come across in my field (software development), most of them have a very basic understanding of the fundamental ideas of computer science. I am under zero threat of my job being shipped to India, or my company being purchased by an Indian company.

Obviously you have encountered much racism in your life, and I'm sorry for that. I hope that skin color and ethnicity will be ignored in 25 years. It really is silly to base judgement of a person off of where they were born. I say judge them for their actions.


RE: Great!
By Suntan on 10/23/2008 10:54:17 PM , Rating: 4
I'd have to agree. In my direct experience, the Indian "engineers" that they ship over to work here (supposedly the best of the group back there) seem to have no real understanding of how to do the work. They have some fundamental basics, but nothing close to being able to do the job by themselves. Almost as if there is no common sense for the job (obviously not the same as general common sense like expecting to get 4 dollars back from a 10 when the bill is 6 bucks, but common sense in an engineering environment if you know what I mean.)

Unfortunately, that minor problem is not important when managers are held to the fire by upper management to show that they have used Indian resources for X% of their annual objectives (so upper management can tell shareholders they have increased productivity by outsourcing x% of their resource requirements.)

The directive I got from my last boss was something to the effect of, "I don't care! You need to give those guys something that they can work on or I'm going to get in trouble if they report back that they are not being used."

-Suntan


RE: Great!
By Noya on 10/23/2008 2:26:34 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
about taking jobs... you will be amazed India is responsible for 60% of foregin investment in UK alone and has generated more than 2600 jobs in last one year alone...


Yes, and in the USA I'm pretty sure they get 2600 jobs snatched away and sent to India on a monthly basis.


RE: Great!
By vic1218 on 10/23/2008 11:59:09 PM , Rating: 2
Wait a minute, before you bash the western countries...

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM7YH2MDAF_index_0_m.htm...


RE: Great!
By rcc on 10/23/2008 2:04:15 PM , Rating: 3
Get a grip mate.

He just said they were hard to understand. Perhaps the same as someone from Chicago trying to speak Hindi, particularly to one of your countrymen that doesn't speak English.

It isn't always about race, or bias. Just difference.

For that matter, sometimes the rest of the US has trouble understanding our friends from the deep South. And, the English have problems with understanding the Scots, Welch, or Irish.


RE: Great!
By ThePooBurner on 10/24/2008 3:25:00 PM , Rating: 2
Even the Scottish, Welch, and Irish have a hard time with the Scottish, Welch, and Irish ;)


RE: Great!
By Fnoob on 10/23/2008 6:52:46 PM , Rating: 2
A wee bit oversensitive there, aren't we mate? I said nothing about their intelligence, their culture, or their accomplishments. I simply stated, as many would agree, that tech support, in English, spoken with an Indian accent, is damn near incomprehensible to many.


RE: Great!
By Samus on 10/23/2008 10:11:37 PM , Rating: 2
You are a racist spat just for saying it's racist.

When someone comments on not being able to understand a person because of their race. We all know where your head it. Why don't you wind it down a bit, go grab a pint and argue about it in the pub where it belongs.

I hate overseas tech support because I can't communicate. It's a valid arguement. It doesn't make me hate people, it makes me hate the companies that exploit them for cheap labor without proper training or regard to customer satisfaction.


Priorities
By Fnoob on 10/23/2008 10:00:38 AM , Rating: 2
I fail to see what sort of data they would hope to gain with an $80 million expenditure.

"Earlier missions did not come out with a full understanding of the moon and that is the reason scientists are still interested."

Hmmm. Again, it seems there is an abundance of data on the moon from the many manned missions and the retrieval of lunar samples. If the US is willing to supply the Indian gov't with nuclear fuel, I'm sure we could loan them some lunar soil to study...

While it is a statement of Indian achievement, they have a terribly high percentage of their population starving to death. It would certainly have been money better spent trying to alleviate that condition.




RE: Priorities
By bribud on 10/23/2008 10:18:50 AM , Rating: 2
India seems to be so different depending on where exactly in the country you are, it almost seems like two countries. So, perhaps they justify that the hunger issues are not the problem of the group/culture coordinating the moon mission, but another group??

Not really sure here, just call me an ignorant American if this is not the case.


RE: Priorities
By Connoisseur on 10/23/2008 10:38:25 AM , Rating: 1
Not really. More just an extreme case of the haves vs. have nots. I don't have an exact statistic but i'm reasonably sure that the government + the top 5% of the wealthiest people probably control about 95% of the wealth. Which means the other ~900 million people are on their own. That's a corrupt government for ya...


RE: Priorities
By Amiga500 on 10/23/2008 11:23:22 AM , Rating: 2
In most countries you will find that is the case.

(i.e. 5% owns 95%)


RE: Priorities
By pandyamuks on 10/23/2008 11:31:50 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah its still a democratic society even when it has have and havenots, India has given world leaders in past and present super managers.
Every country has such kind of problems social, demographic etc..
its not a while a decade back India was pulled in a matter of discrimation against minorities.. now UK, Australia have the same problems... well u cant ignore US can you... not a single black african american has become president..

its easy to measure and get derailed with an budding idea and not remove the stamp what u got ingrained in ur head for ages... but u should visit India to know what it is actually...
just accept the fact what it is..


RE: Priorities
By ggordonliddy on 10/23/2008 7:00:48 PM , Rating: 2
> not a single black african american has become president

No, we have only had white African Americans as president so far. But there is no hope for us because we in America are truly evil racist murdering scum.

PLEASE LEARN BASIC ENGLISH BEFORE TRYING TO CONVERSE WITH ENGLISH SPEAKERS. It's like talking to someone at a call center. The mangled verbiage is maddening. For one example (out of many, there is no such thing as "discrimation".


RE: Priorities
By thomasantony on 10/23/2008 10:49:17 AM , Rating: 2
Well,
Well, if loaning lunar soil is the solution, NASA itself wouldn't have given us their own payload to send to the moon. In fact India ( through TIFR, Tata Institute for Fundamental Research ) was the first nation that requested and received lunar samples back in the 70's .

Chandrayaan does a lot more than what was done before, simply due to the availability of superior technology. Apollo did a lot of things, but it still covered only a very small area on the lunar surface. We sure have lots of problems here. But all the money spent on space, goes back mostly to the indigenous industry itself.

The potential technology spinoffs, the science that is done ( its India's to keep for 2 years except for sharing with the partner agencies) will be very beneficial to the country.

There will always be problems on Earth. That is no reason for us to stop forging ahead.


RE: Priorities
By pandyamuks on 10/23/08, Rating: 0
RE: Priorities
By GaryJohnson on 10/23/2008 3:51:35 PM , Rating: 2
Wether your American or Indian, touting about how your country can 'do no wrong' is a bad idea.

At most it's estimated that around 2500 people died in Katrina, in 2002 50 million Indians were on the brink of starvation. How dare you compare those 2 numbers.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/2002/1...


RE: Priorities
By furthermoar on 10/23/2008 11:43:19 AM , Rating: 2
ISRO is a state-funded organisation that's open to foreign clients. Yes, there are people starving, but that has little or nothing to do with this mission. India already spends more money than any nation on "upliftments", so your priority argument is answered there.

That aside the objective for Chandrayaan-I is to establish ISRO as a capable organisation for launching satellites. Every year, they launch satellites for foreign clients. Having had a successful mission to the Moon is quite a laurel. Besides, Chandrayaan-I is carrying instruments made by ESA and NASA apart from its own instruments, so it's not entirely a "priority-defect". The only nation I see, that has lost track of its priorities completely, is the US.


RE: Priorities
By radializer on 10/25/2008 6:18:29 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Hmmm. Again, it seems there is an abundance of data on the moon from the many manned missions and the retrieval of lunar samples. If the US is willing to supply the Indian gov't with nuclear fuel, I'm sure we could loan them some lunar soil to study...

As mentioned by other posters, the footprint of the previous lunar missions has been limited to smaller regions of the moon's surface. If you see the ISRO mission statement and objective, they are mainly aiming at collecting a lot of remote sensing data on large areas of the moon for future mineral and resource mapping. A direct quote from the site states the objectives as:-

http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/Home.htm

quote:
To prepare a three-dimensional atlas (with high spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10 m) of both near and far side of the moon.

quote:
To conduct chemical and mineralogical mapping of the entire lunar surface for distribution of mineral and chemical elements such as Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Calcium, Iron and Titanium as well as high atomic number elements such as Radon, Uranium & Thorium with high spatial resolution.

This mission seems to be aimed at proving initial data for a possible future of Lunar mineral mining operations - and both the ESA and NASA are collaborating on these lines and have data sharing agreements in place.

Most folks may not be aware but the remote sensing capabilities of ISRO are well established and USA, France and India are the 3 world leaders in the sale of remote sensing data. In fact, India is second only to the US in terms of number of remote sensing satellites in orbit - in these terms, this mission makes a lot of sense.

If you look at the payload, of a total of 11 modules, 5 were developed solely by ISRO, 4 were in collaboration with the ESA and 2 were in collaboration with NASA (listed below)

Modules solely developed by ISRO are TMC, HySI, LLRI, HEX and MIP

Collaborations between ESA and ISRO resulted in the C1XS, SIR-2, RADOM and SARA modules with contributions from Rutherford Appleton Labs (UK), Max-Planck Society, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Institute for Space Physics.

Collaborations between NASA and ISRO resulted in the Mini-SAR and M3 modules supported by Johns-Hopkins, JPL and the Naval Air Warfare Center.

http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/psexperiment...


RE: Priorities
By radializer on 10/25/2008 6:22:01 AM , Rating: 2
Remote sensing data - market trends ... for those who are interested ...

http://www.scanex.com/en/publications/pdf/publicat...


Terrorist Organization !!!!
By shady3005 on 10/23/2008 2:41:27 PM , Rating: 2
ISRO is a terrorist organization bent at wiping humanity off the face of the moon. ..

It's middle name is BIN ... and it's LADEN with weapons of mass destruction ....




RE: Terrorist Organization !!!!
By Spinne on 10/24/2008 1:46:07 AM , Rating: 2
I know that this is highly redundant, but hey, it's a first for me:

TROLL ALERT!!!!

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS!!!!


Cool
By Aberforth on 10/23/2008 12:24:16 PM , Rating: 2
Good to see India is progessing, this mission is highly important as it helps establishing Lunar outposts by 2060-2100 and space elevators.

I wish they had named it Rajdanni Express though :) :D...Chandrayan is kinda obsolete.




lol...
By ShaolinSoccer on 10/26/2008 10:52:08 PM , Rating: 2
"We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits." -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs









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