Kohum Posted October 22, 2008 Posted October 22, 2008 Chandrayaan-I launched successfully 22 Oct 2008, 0628 hrs IST, PTI : SRIHARIKOTA: Chandrayaan-1, India's maiden moon spacecraft, was on Wednesday put into Transfer Orbit around the earth by the Polar Launch VehiMoon Mission: Chandrayaan-1 (TOI Photo) 19 minutes after it blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here. The 1,380 kg Chandrayaan-1, carrying 11 payloads, was released into a Tansfer Orbit at a perigee (nearest point to earth) of about 250 km and apogee (farthest point from the earth) of about 23,000 km, 18.2 minutes after the PSLV-C11 blasted off as the scientists broke into jubilation at the mission control centre. After a series of procedures over the next two weeks, the spacecraft would reach its desired Lunar orbit and placed at a height of 100 km from the Lunar surface, marking the operational phase of the mission which would put India in the elite lunar club. Earlier, at the end of the 49-hour countdown, the 44.4 meter tall four-stage PSLV-11 lifted off from the second launch pad into a cloudy sky. This is the 14th flight of ISRO's workhorse PSLV, which had launched 29 satellites into a variety of orbits since 1993, and 13th successive one in a row. Chandrayaan-1 is carrying 11 payloads, five entirely designed and developed in India, three from European Space Agency, one from Bulgaria and two from US, which would explore the Moon over the next two years. :two_thumbs_up::isalute: :isalute: !!!
varun Posted October 22, 2008 Posted October 22, 2008 So far so good. Long way to go before this is declared a complete success :D I find this part of the mission particularly interesting: Chandrayaan-1 will search for helium-3, considered among the cleanest fuels known. It is sparsely available on Earth. Scientists believe that if helium can be harnessed in nuclear reactors it will go a long way in solving Earth's power problems. While Earth may have only 15 tonnes of helium-3, Moon is thought to contain up to 5 million tonnes, enough to produce energy for 8,000 years.
cochise Posted October 22, 2008 Posted October 22, 2008 YES!!! Now let's hope everything goes to plan and the technical mission is a success. If they happen to make any discoveries to boot...I will be over the moon!
varun Posted October 22, 2008 Posted October 22, 2008 YES!!! Now let's hope everything goes to plan and the technical mission is a success. If they happen to make any discoveries to boot...I will be over the moon!:giggle::two_thumbs_up:
siddhu Posted October 22, 2008 Posted October 22, 2008 Freeking Awesome. If this project is a complete success and helps us in a lot of technological advances then it seriously boots down all CC's whinning about White elephant project and wasted money and what not. I am firm believer of "Teach a man to fish... you feed him for a life time" school. This $80 mil would at the most have bought 80 mil meals (going by "most of our population lives under $1 a day") and would have been spent in a day. After that what... people would still be hungry tomorrow. Are you going to do this kind of charity everyday??? The best way would be to create more job opportunities by using money wisely on such projects. If it is not a complete success, still we learn a lot from this project. I would say $80 mil well spent.:two_thumbs_up:
CC1981 Posted October 24, 2008 Posted October 24, 2008 The best way would be to create more job opportunities by using money wisely on such projects. This is the biggest boolsheet ever....what job opportunities are being created by this project ? still we learn a lot from this project Take it from me- an engineer- there is nothing extra you will learn from sending something to the moon that you cant learn from near-earth orbit launches ( ala space-station, which is helluva lot more useful). If we really wanted to learn something, we'd have pitched in for the international space station and reaped in the scientific rewards. All this project is, is a total white elephant show-off project for a nation that is deeply insecure and has ****ed up priorities. This $80 mil would at the most have bought 80 mil meals (going by "most of our population lives under $1 a day") and would have been spent in a day. This 80 million could've easily brought power to 10 villages, opened dozens of schools, made significant number of roads...etc etc...but no, inscure people and insecure nations don't think about the small things that make a nation great, they only think about big white-elephant projects that only they believe demonstrates their greatness, while the rest of the world (including me) lowers their respect for such an insecure nation, for it is unthinkable for us to have more than half our nation malnourished and starving and still trying to compete with nations who are much more advanced and are embarking on such a project only AFTER most of their population is well fed, clothed and homed. TO give a better analogy, India sending a rocket to the moon while having 50% of its nation malnourished and living in poverty is akin to a dude with 5 kids who all live on tattered clothes and 1 meal a day while the dad spends money on an armani suit. Pathetic.
Gambit Posted October 24, 2008 Posted October 24, 2008 Great achievement! The brainchild of Bhabha and Sarabhai, ISRO has gone from strength to strength and give us a lot to feel proud of.
Lurker Posted October 24, 2008 Posted October 24, 2008 This 80 million could've easily brought power to 10 villages' date= opened dozens of schools, made significant number of roads...etc etc...but no, inscure people and insecure nations don't think about the small things that make a nation great, they only think about big white-elephant projects that only they believe demonstrates their greatness, while the rest of the world (including me) lowers their respect for such an insecure nation, for it is unthinkable for us to have more than half our nation malnourished and starving and still trying to compete with nations who are much more advanced and are embarking on such a project only AFTER most of their population is well fed, clothed and homed. Ridiculous line of reasoning. For a country like India, we spend not millions but billions in villages and infrastructure. Just to put things in perspective 80 million translates to about 400 crores INR. This is less than 0.4% of what India has spent on a single project Golden Quadrilateral. VISAKHAPATNAM DEC. 13. The success of the Golden Quadrilateral project of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has enthused the Centre to take the total of four-lane highways to 10,000 km. from the original 5,846 km, with the project cost going up from Rs. 60,000 crores to Rs. 1 lakh crores. http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/12/14/stories/2003121404550400.htm This is of course only 1 project and many more are going on as we speak. Not sure why we as a nation should be worries about an expenditure that is downright miniscule in overall picture. xxxx
cochise Posted October 24, 2008 Posted October 24, 2008 Does anyone know of a link that tracks the progress of the mission? If so, could you post it on here? Thanks.
siddhu Posted October 24, 2008 Posted October 24, 2008 This is the biggest boolsheet ever....what job opportunities are being created by this project ? Take it from me- an engineer- there is nothing extra you will learn from sending something to the moon that you cant learn from near-earth orbit launches ( ala space-station, which is helluva lot more useful). If we really wanted to learn something, we'd have pitched in for the international space station and reaped in the scientific rewards. All this project is, is a total white elephant show-off project for a nation that is deeply insecure and has ****ed up priorities. This 80 million could've easily brought power to 10 villages, opened dozens of schools, made significant number of roads...etc etc...but no, inscure people and insecure nations don't think about the small things that make a nation great, they only think about big white-elephant projects that only they believe demonstrates their greatness, while the rest of the world (including me) lowers their respect for such an insecure nation, for it is unthinkable for us to have more than half our nation malnourished and starving and still trying to compete with nations who are much more advanced and are embarking on such a project only AFTER most of their population is well fed, clothed and homed. TO give a better analogy, India sending a rocket to the moon while having 50% of its nation malnourished and living in poverty is akin to a dude with 5 kids who all live on tattered clothes and 1 meal a day while the dad spends money on an armani suit. Pathetic. I am pretty sure, you would have found something to whine about that also. Its not like we are stagnant in Infrastructure development. We are developing the infrastructure, it takes time. And you are saying that there have been no jobs created because of this project? Tell that to Physicists (with Masters) like me who left the country because of the lack of opportunity during that time.
Kohum Posted November 8, 2008 Posted November 8, 2008 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chandrayaan_enters_lunar_orbit/articleshow/3689519.cms It's now orbiting the moon !!! Good luck for the landing "Chandrayaan carries 11 scientific instruments, including six foreign payloads - two from the US, three from the European Space Agency (ESA) and one from Bulgaria. The remaining five are indigenously designed and developed by various centres of the state-run ISRO.
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