SPACE SCIENCE AND

EXPLORATION

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Space Science and Exploration

• India has successfully launched the following satellites for space science and exploration
• Chandrayaan 1
• Mars Orbiter Mission
• Astrosat
• Chandrayaan 2

• India is yet to launch the following satellites

• Aditya L1

Chandrayaan 1
• India's first mission to Moon
• Launched in 2008
• Aim- chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon.
• The spacecraft carried 11 scientific instruments (5 from India and 6 from abroad) built in India, USA,
UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria.
• Scientific Payloads from India
a) Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC)
b) Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI)
c) Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI)
d) High Energy X - ray Spectrometer (HEX)
e) Moon Impact Probe (MIP)
• Scientific Payloads from abroad
f) Chandrayaan-I X-ray Spectrometer (CIXS)
g) Near Infrared Spectrometer (SIR - 2)
h) Sub keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA)
i) Miniature Synthetic Aperature Radar (Mini SAR)
j) Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3)
k) Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM)
• The mission was concluded when the communication with the spacecraft was lost in August, 2009.

❑ Findings of Chandrayaan-1
• Detection of water (H2O) and hydroxyl (OH) on the lunar surface by Moon Impact Probe (MIP)
• Magma ocean hypothesis (moon was once in molten state)- confirmed by data obtained from the imaging
instruments, HySI and TMC.
• Surface reflectance anomalies in and around the Apollo-15 and 17 landing sites found by TMC
• New spinel-rich rock type detected on lunar far-side by TMC data combined with HySI, M3 and SIR2
data
• Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) detected characteristic X-ray signals from the lunar surface
during weak solar flares, thus providing the first set of high resolution X-ray spectra indicating the
presence of Mg, Al, Si, and Ca at several locations on the lunar surface.
• Recently, it was also found that water concentration changes at <60⁰ latitudes over the course of lunar
day, being wetter in the morning and evening and dry during lunar noon with fluctuations upto 200ppm

Chandrayaan-2
• Developed by ISRO, lift-off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota Island.

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• It includes a lunar orbiter, lander (named Vikram) and rover (Pragyan), all developed indigenously.
• It weighs about 2,650 kg at lift-off of which the orbiter weight is about 1,400 kg and lander weight is about
1,250 kg.
• The soft-landing of Chandrayaan-2's landing module, Vikram, did not go according to plan as all ground
communication was lost with it just moments before the scheduled landing late on September 7.

Mars Orbiter Mission

• Also called Mangalyaan
• India's first interplanetary mission to planet Mars
• Launched in 2013
• Objective- Exploration of Mars surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere by
indigenous scientific instruments.
• MOM was launched aboard PSLV C-25, which was an XL variant of the PSLV
• The XL variant was earlier used to launch Chandrayaan
• Carried five payloads:
• Mars Colour Camera (MCC)
• Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS)
• Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM)
• Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)
• Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP)

AstroSat
❑ First dedicated Indian astronomy mission
❑ Launched in 2015
❑ Aim - studying celestial sources in X-ray, optical and UV spectral bands simultaneously.
❑ Multi wavelength space observatory
• It enables the simultaneous multi-wavelength observations of various astronomical objects with a single
satellite.
• Most other satellites use only a narrow range of wavelength band
❑ The scientific objectives of AstroSat mission are:
• To understand high energy processes in binary star systems containing neutron stars and black holes;
• Estimate magnetic fields of neutron stars;
• Study star birth regions and high energy processes in star systems lying beyond our galaxy;
• Detect new briefly bright X-ray sources in the sky;
• Perform a limited deep field survey of the Universe in the Ultraviolet region.
• Recently US-based LIGO group announced having detected gravitational waves emanating from the
merger of two massive black holes located nearly 3 billion light years away.
• Simultaneously, Hawaii-based ATLAS group identified a fading glow from the part of the sky where these
black holes were roughly estimated to lie. The group surmised that this was an electromagnetic (light
based) afterglow emanating from the merger.
• In collaboration with the GROWTH (Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen)
network of observatories, AstroSat team ruled out any connection with the black hole merger and has
concluded that this event is due to a gamma ray burst.
• A gamma ray burst is light emanating from a bursting star, for example, an exploding supernova, that may
lead to the formation of a black hole. This places the afterglow among a class of phenomena detected
routinely by the space observatory.

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• The discovery was made with the help of the Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI), an x-ray telescope
aboard AstroSat.

Aditya L1
❑ Satellite will be launched during 2019 – 2020 timeframe by PSLV-XL.
❑ Aim
• To provide observations of Sun's Photosphere (soft and hard X-ray), Chromosphere (UV) and corona
(Visible and NIR)
• To study the particle flux emanating from the Sun and reaching the L1 orbit
• To measure the variation in magnetic field strength at the halo orbit around L1
❑ What is corona?
• The outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of km above the disc (photosphere) is termed as the
corona.
• It has a temperature of more than a million degree Kelvin which is much higher than the solar disc
temperature of around 6000K.
• How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics.
• Lagrangian points also Lagrange points, L-points, or libration points) are positions in
an orbital configuration of two large bodies where a small object affected only by gravity can maintain a
stable position relative to the two large bodies.
• The Lagrange points mark positions where the combined gravitational pull of the two large masses
provides precisely the centripetal force required to orbit with them.

• India will send ISRO’s solar mission Aditya-L1 to a vantage point in space, known as the L1 Lagrange
point, to do imaging and study of the sun.
• This launch will happen in the early part of the next solar cycle - an occurrence in which sunspots form on
the face of the sun, growing in size and number and eventually diminishing, all over a period of eleven
years. It will be a mission of many firsts.
• The so-called L1 point is 1.5 million kilometres away.
• Here, due to the delicate balance of gravitational forces, the satellite will require very little energy to
maintain its orbit.

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• Also it will not be eclipsed from the sun.

• The 1,500-kg class satellite will be programmed to orbit this point and image the sun’s magnetic field
from space for the very first time in the world.
• Scientists hope to capture the close-ups of the sun from here, uninterrupted by eclipses for years.
• Few other space agencies have successfully placed their satellites at this location. Among the few, the
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a NASA-ESA collaboration involving America and
Europe, and NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) are at L1 exclusively to study the sun and
space weather, respectively.
• Aditya-L1 is expected to be the very first to study from space two months from the time of launch, the
magnetic field of the sun’s corona.
• It will be the first 100% Indian mission which will not only negotiate a challenging orbit, but will also
benefit the global scientific community in understanding the sun.

❑ List of payloads on Aditya L1

• Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC): To study the diagnostic parameters of solar corona and
dynamics and origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (3 visible and 1 Infra-Red channels); magnetic field
measurement of solar corona down to tens of Gauss – Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA)
• Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT): To image the spatially resolved Solar Photosphere and
Chromosphere in near Ultraviolet (200-400 nm) and measure solar irradiance variations - Inter-University
Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA)
• Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) : To study the variation of solar wind properties as
well as its distribution and spectral characteristics – Physical Research Laboratory (PRL)
• Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA) : To understand the composition of solar wind and its
energy distribution – Space Physics Laboratory (SPL), VSSC
• Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS) : To monitor the X-ray flares for studying the heating
mechanism of the solar corona – ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC)
• High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS): To observe the dynamic events in the solar
corona and provide an estimate of the energy used to accelerate the particles during the eruptive events
- ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC)and Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO), PRL
• Magnetometer: To measure the magnitude and nature of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field – Laboratory
for Electro-optic Systems (LEOS) and ISAC.

ISRO to develop full- fledged earth observation satellite

• A new set of future satellites called hyperspectral imaging satellites is set to add teeth to the way India is
gleaned from about 600 km in space.

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• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) says it plans to launch a full-fledged niche Earth
observation (EO) satellite — called the Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite or HySIS — using a critical chip
it has developed.
• The new chip, technically called an “optical imaging detector array,” that they have created for it would
be tested and perfected.
• It said it decided to develop the chip that suited Indian requirements.
• Hyperspectral or hyspex imaging is said to be an EO trend that is being experimented globally.
• Advantages: Adding a new dimension to plain-vanilla optical imagers, it can be used for a range of
activities from:
→monitoring the environment, crops, looking for oil and minerals all the way up to military surveillance
— all of which need images that show a high level of differentiation of the object or scene.
• Past experiences: About a decade ago, ISRO added another EO niche with microwave or radar imaging
satellites RISAT-1 and 2 that could ‘see’ through clouds and the dark — an important feature useful for the
military and security agencies.
• ‘Hyspex’ imaging is said to enable distinct identification of objects, materials or processes on Earth by
reading the spectrum for each pixel of a scene from space.
• ISRO first tried it out in an 83-kg IMS-1 experimental satellite in May 2008. The same year, a
hyperspectral camera was put on Chandrayaan-1 and used to map lunar mineral resources. The payloads
development centre, Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, designed the architecture of the chip which
was made at ISRO’s electronics arm, the Semi-Conductor Laboratory, Chandigarh.
• EO experts called it the ‘CATSCAN’ equivalent of Earth from space.

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For Get the Book, Kindly visit at

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For full explanation: Enrol in course at

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