Chandrayaan

In this article written for Day Four of World Space Week 2019, I write a short piece about the Chandrayan missions.

The Chandraayan program, also known as the Indian Lunar Exploration Programme, is pioneered by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It’s a multiple mission program, with the overall aim of lunar exploration. So far there have been two missions, only one of which was successful.

Chandrayaan-1 was launched on 22 Oct 2008, and a probe on the spacecraft discovered water on the Moon. It also did some mapping and atmospheric profiling of the Moon.

Chandrayaan-2 was launched very recently on 22nd July 2019, and on the 6th of September, sadly ISRO lost all contact with the spacecraft when landing 2.1 km above the lunar surface. However, we have learned a lot from this mission.

Chandrayaan-3 is likely to be launched sometime in 2023 and ISRO is working with Japan on a collaboration for this mission, which is not defined yet. However, the future of the Chandrayaan missions and ISRO is looking very bright!