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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chandrayaan programme | 1/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan_programme | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T12:59:47.013443+00:00 | kb-cron |
The Chandrayaan programme ( CHUN-drə-YAHN) (Sanskrit: Candra 'Moon', Yāna 'Craft, Vehicle', ) also known as the Indian Lunar Exploration Programme is an ongoing series of outer space missions by ISRO for the exploration of the Moon. The program incorporates a lunar orbiter, an impactor, a soft lander and a rover spacecraft. There have been three missions so far with a total of two orbiters, landers and rovers each. While the two orbiters were successful, the first lander and rover which were part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, crashed on the surface. The second lander and rover mission Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the Moon on 23 August 2023, making India the first nation to successfully land a spacecraft in the lunar south pole region, and the fourth country to soft land on the Moon after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
== Background == The Indian space programme had begun with no intentions of undertaking sophisticated initiatives like human spaceflight and extraterrestrial missions during the initial days. It was only after ISRO developed the capabilities of creating satellites and orbital launch vehicles like PSLV, that the possibilities of India's first extraterrestrial exploration mission to the Moon were being explored in the early 2000s. The idea of a lunar scientific mission was first raised in 1999 during a meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS) which was then carried forward by the Astronautical Society of India (ASI) in 2000. The robotic exploration programme is intended as a precursor until Indian astronauts land on the Moon to carry forward further explorations, with the robotic programme planned to continue beyond crewed landings as a support to the crewed missions.
== History ==
=== First mission ===
Soon after the proposals by the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1999 and by the Astronautical Society of India in 2000, a National Lunar Mission Task Force (NLMTF) was set up which constituted ISRO and leading Indian scientists and technologists across the nation to conduct the feasibility study. The study report was then reviewed by a peer group of 100 scientists from various fields. The recommendations put forward were as follows:
The Indian Moon Mission assumes significance in the context of the international scientific community considering several exciting missions in planetary exploration, in the new millennium. ISRO has the necessary expertise to develop and launch the Moon Mission with imaginative features and it would be different from the past missions. Hence ISRO should go ahead with the project approval and implementation. Apart from technological and scientific gains, it would provide the needed thrust to basic science and engineering research in the country. The project would help return young talents to the arena of fundamental research. The Academia, in particular, the university scientists would find participation in such a project intellectually rewarding. In this context, the scientific objectives would need further refinement to include other innovative ideas from a broader scientific community through Announcement of Opportunity, etc. It is not whether we can afford it. It is whether we can afford to ignore it. On 15 August 2003, then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the project which was estimated to cost ₹350 crore (US$37 million). In November of the same year, the government approved the Chandrayaan project which would consist of an orbiter that would conduct mineralogical and chemical mapping of the surface. During the assembly of the orbiter only mission, then president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam visited the ISRO office and advised that orbiter alone would not suffice and proposed of another instrument that could be dropped on the surface. Following the advice, the scientists made design changes to the project and included an impact probe named Moon Impact Probe (MIP). The MIP was planned to be dropped from 100 km (62 mi) altitude and would acquire close-range images of the surface, collect telemetry data for future soft landing missions and measure the constituents of the lunar atmosphere.
The project required India set up its deep space network and the entire project cost ₹360 crore (US$38 million). On 22 October 2008, Chandrayaan-1 was successfully launched aboard the PSLV rocket. After earth bound maneuvers and trans lunar injection, Chandrayaan-1 entered the lunar orbit on 10 November, making India the fifth nation to orbit Moon. Four days later, on 14 November, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) impacted near the Shackleton crater, in the lunar south pole, this made India the fifth country to reach the lunar surface. The MIP made the most significant discovery by confirming the existence of water on Moon. This discovery was not made public until NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper payload onboard Chandrayaan-1 orbiter confirmed the same on 24 September 2009. The mission was intended to last two years, but the contact with the orbiter was lost on 28 August 2009, which officially ended the mission.
=== Second mission ===
After the success of the Chandrayaan-1 mission, a follow-up mission worth ₹425 crore (US$45 million) was already being planned and was targeted for a launch in 2012. Abdul Kalam suggested for collaboration between India and the United States for the Chandrayaan-2 mission, which would soft land near the lunar south pole and perform robotic penetrations into the surface to study more about the lunar water. However, an agreement had already been signed in the year 2007 by ISRO and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, for the second lunar mission under the Chandrayaan-2 project.