Bangalore: Chandrayaan-II moon mission, which
will help in analysis of mineral composition and undertake
terrain mapping of the moon, will be completed by 2012-13,
Project Director of Chandrayaan Dr M Annadurai said on Saturday.
"The Rs 425 crore project will be completed by 2012-13. As
opposed to Chandrayaan-1 which was a moon orbiter, in
Chandrayaan-2, the two moon rovers will actually land on the
moon surface," he said inaugurating the sixth National Student
Conference at University Visveswaraya College of Engineering.
"Chadrayaan-II will consist of the spacecraft and a
landing platform with two moon rovers, one from India and one
from Russia, which will land on the moon and move on wheels on
the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, do a
chemical analysis and send the data to the spacecraft orbiting
above," Annadurai said.
Annadurai, the Project Director of Chandrayaan-I and II,
said the Chardrayaan-I which was the 70th satellite to go on
the moon "created history with discovery of water there
(moon)".
"The Rs 386 crore project (Chandrayaan-I) which took four
and a half years to be completed has provided 6 terabits of
data which will take the scientists three years to mull over,"
he said.
Annadurai gave the credit of Chandrayaan-I success to the
"teamwork of the 3,000 scientists who worked tirelessly on the
project".
Speaking about IIT, he said "all of you can become
IITians by involving yourself in whatever you do, innovating,
thinking uniquely and by team work. This is what IIT means to
me."
"Chandrayaan mission, which has provided me the podium to
come closer to the student community, is an living example of
this three-pronged approach (IIT), which shows that India can
do wonders with its research", Annadurai said.
"The students of today have the capacity to lead the
world in 2020 through innovation", he said.
Bureau Report
