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Chandrayaan-1 beams pictures of Earth

CHENNAI: Chandrayaan-1, India’s spacecraft to the moon, has beamed down two beautiful pictures of the Earth it took on October 29. The pictures were taken by the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on board the spacecraft after it was switched on. The first image taken by the TMC at 8 a.m. on October 29 from a height of 9,000 km shows the northern coast of Australia. The second image, taken at 12.30 p.m. from a height of 70,000 km, shows Australia’s southern coast.

The TMC is an imaging instrument built by the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The aim is to take pictures of the entire surface of the Moon. The ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) put Chandrayaan-1 into its initial orbit with an apogee of 22,866 km and a perigee of 256 km on October 22.

M. Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan-1, said, “Although we tested all the 11 scientific instruments of Chandrayaan-1 on the ground, we wanted to cross-verify, after the launch, the entire chain of its instruments, data storage, data handling systems, downlinking and radio frequency systems including the antennas at Byalalu village, near Bangalore and the ground processing of the images. The entire system is ready now.”

The first pictures might not be of much scientific value but “we are able to verify en route to the moon the full chain of systems,” he said. “This shows that the instruments on board Chandrayaan-1 are ready to image the moon after it goes into the final orbit around the moon.”

Mr. Annadurai added that “the entire team is happy because the systems on the ground and on board the spacecraft are in place.”

The TMC is one of the 11 scientific instruments on board the Chandrayaan-1. The camera can take black and white pictures of an object by recording the visible light reflected from it. The camera has a resolution of five metres. When the TMC takes pictures of the moon’s entire surface, they will provide insights into the early origin and evolution of the moon.

An ISRO press release said the TMC was successfully operated on October 29 through a series of commands radioed to Chandrayaan-1 from the Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore. Analysis of the first images received by the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN)’s two bowl-shaped antennas with diameters of 32 metres and 18 metres at Byalalu and later processed by the Indian Space Science Data Centre “confirms the excellent performance of the camera,” said the press release. The spacecraft’s performance was being continuously monitored and was normal, it added.

After four manoeuvres to raise Chandrayaan-1’s orbit, it is now circling the Earth in an orbit whose apogee lies at 2,67,000 km and perigee at 465 km. In this orbit, the spacecraft takes about six days to go round the Earth once. The moon is 3.84 lakh km away from the Earth.

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