Zeenews Bureau
Bangalore, Nov 15: India on Friday became the fourth nation ever to touch base with the Moon when its Moon Impact Probe successfuly detached from Chandrayaan-1 and crash landed on its south pole.
The other countries to have achieved this feat are the US, USSR and Japan.
ISRO said in an early reaction that the manoeuvre was 'perfect'.
”The Moon has been very favourable to us all through. We have travelled all the way to the moon,” ISRO chief Madhavan Nair told a crowded press conference here as his fellow space scientists applauded.
"It's an inspiration for the country," former President APJ Abdul Kalam said, adding that "ignited youth mind is the most powerful resource on the Earth." Kalam is the brain behind the MIP.
The MIP has already sent “beautiful images with high resolution of the moon and their analysis will now begin”, Nair said.
The around 35-kg MIP with three instruments took the images as it hurtled towards the lunar surface detaching from India’s first unamanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1.
The Probe, to be named "Aditya," aimed to kick up some dust, which instruments in the craft would analyze. Chandrayaan-1 released the MIP from 100 km above the moon's surface.
The MIP is painted with the Indian tricolour on its four sides.
As a precursor, on Thursday, MIP was detached from the main craft; readying it for the final launch towards the moon’s surface.
MIP is one of the 11 scientific instruments (payloads) onboard Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft mission to Moon launched on October 22.
The spacecraft on Thursday reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms over the moon surface after ISRO scientists successfully carried out the last critical orbit lowering operation.
Developed by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP is to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon.
The probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions. This apart, scientific exploration of the moon at close distance is also intended using MIP.
The MIP consists of a C-band Radar Altimeter for continuous measurement of altitude of the probe, a video imaging system for acquiring images of the surface of moon from the descending probe and a mass spectrometer for measuring the constituents of extremely thin lunar atmosphere during its 20-minute descent to the lunar surface.
From the operational circular orbit of about 100 km height passing over the polar regions of the Moon, it is intended to conduct chemical, mineralogical and photo geological mapping of the moon with Chandrayaan-1's 11 scientific instruments (payloads).
Two of those 11 payloads - Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) - have already been successfully switched on. TMC has successfully taken the pictures of Earth and the Moon.
First Published: Friday, November 14, 2008, 00:00