The Hindu : National : India plans missions to Mars, Venus

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 13, 2006

National

National

India plans missions to Mars, Venus

Special Correspondent

After Chandrayaan-1 that India will send to the moon in 2008

MUMBAI: Planetary explorations are likely to follow Chandrayaan-1, a polar orbiting satellite that India will send to the moon by early 2008 in its first mission for remote sensing of the earth's satellite.

The planetary explorations planned include missions to Mars and Venus, fly-by asteroids and comets. Landing of a spacecraft on the moon was also on the anvil, said Dr. J.N. Goswami, Principal Scientist, Indian Mission to Moon. Dr. Goswami is director of Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, a cradle of space science in India.

He was delivering a special lecture on `Chandrayaan-1 and Beyond: Science and Technology Challenges' at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) on Friday on the occasion of National Technology Day.

He said the primary focus of the future planetary exploration would be on science issues dealing with the basic theme of understanding the origin and evolution of solar system objects.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) does have the capability for exploration of the inner solar system, he noted but stressed that significant technological development in various areas covering sensors and instruments, spacecraft resources, communication, navigation and thermal managements, robotics and rovers would be needed.

Asked about the signing of an MoU between ISRO and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the U.S., Dr. Goswami said that ISRO had offered opportunity to the international scientific community to participate in the Chandrayaan-1 and the American scientists responded to it but they came through NASA.

Over a dozen proposals for participation were received but only six were accepted on the merit of being complementary to the basic objective of the mission. Their instruments would be carried on the Chandrayaan-1 along with several Indian payloads.

These include terrain mapping camera, a hyper-spectral imager, a low energy x-ray spectrometer, a high energy X-y ray spectrometer and a Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument. The mission would achieve its objective by doing three-dimensional high-resolution selenological and chemical mapping of the entire moon surface — not done before.

Chandrayaan-1will be sent to the moon using advanced version of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL) and the spacecraft design is adopted from flight-proven Indian Remote Sensing Satellite bus with suitable modifications, he said.

The foreign payloads include two NASA instruments, three from the European Space Agency and one from Bulgaria.

Later talking to reporters, Dr. Goswami said each foreign instrument would have an Indian scientist attached as co-investigator and they would have to share the data with India. But the data gathered by the Indian instruments would be India's for one year.

According to an understanding in the international scientific community, the agency conducting the research has first claim on the data and it has to use it in the first year for its research. After that the data comes into the public domain and is accessible to all.

The scientific information gathered by the instrument and relayed to the earth will be first received at the National Science Data Centre through the Deep Space Network Station established at Bangalore to support the spacecraft orbiting the moon.

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