Technology

WOMAN Space Scientists Assigned Major Role In India’s Second Moon Mission

ISRO’s Chandrayaan 2, India’s second unmanned mission to the Moon, will take off on Monday, 15 July, provided the weather conditions are ideal. The mission is expected to liftoff from a launch pad at SHAR in South India’s  Sriharikota on Bay of  Bengal at 2.51 am IST. Developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the mission is planned to be launched to the Moon by a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III. It includes a lunar orbiter, lander and rover, all developed indigenously. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chief Dr Sivan, in a recent press conference, announced the space agency’s plans to set up its own space station. For the first time in India’s space history, the country’s women scientists have been assigned crucial role in the Chandrayaan Misson 2.  The space mission is being led by two women scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). While Vanitha Muthayya is heading the country’s second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 as project director, Ritu Karidhal is the mission director.Vanitha is an expert in data handling.  She has excellent problem-solving skills and is good at managing team. The Chandrayaan-2 mission is taking off 50 years after the astronauts of Apollo II made their historic voyage to the Sea of Tranquillity on the Moon. India’s second moon will attempt a historic touchdown near the Moon’s South Pole “where water ice lurks in permanently shadowed craters”. Only one other mission — China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft — has soft-landed in this rugged, forbidding region, says the Scientific American.”The total cost of the Chandrayaan-2 mission is about $124 million, which includes a $31 million price tag for the launch and $93 million for the satellite. The cost is less than half of the budget of Hollywood blockbuster “Avengers Endgame”, which had an estimated budget of $356 million,” says Sputnik.The Guardian, in a piece titled ‘Everyone’s going back to the Moon. But why?’ writes: As the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo landing approaches, a host of countries are undertaking lunar missions. What’s behind the new space race?”At 2.51 am on Monday, July 15, engineers at India’s national spaceport at Sriharikota will blast their Chandrayaan-2 probe into orbit around the Earth. It will be the most ambitious space mission the nation has attempted.”Chandrayaan 2 is the second mission to the moon developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) after Chandrayaan 1. Chandrayaan 2 is an indigenous mission which includes an orbiter, a lander and a rover. The mission has planned to be launched to the moon by a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III.After the success of Chandrayaan 1, the Mangalyaan mission to Mars and a host of other satellite launches since then, the expectations from Chandrayaan 2 are quite high. f all goes to plan with the mission, in a first for India, ISRO will deposit a lander and rover on the surface of the Moon on 6 September 2019. The orbiter-lander-rover composite is expected to make a soft-landing on a previously unexplored region just 650 kilometres from the lunar South Pole. This will be the first time any mission touched down so far away from the equator. One of the primary objectives is to demonstrate the ability to soft-land on the lunar surface. Among the mission’s other scientific objectives are experiments to map the Moon’s surface, its mineral and element content, moonquakes and signatures of water-ice on the lunar surface, says India Today.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.