India Reaches Out For the Moon

What is new about the Moon? Ask India. The country has finally managed to blast off its mission for Moon, Chandrayaan 1, marking a new era in space exploration.

Published: Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:10 AM

Last updated: Sun 5 Apr 2015, 4:08 PM

This has come nearly 25 years after India sent its first man, Rakesh Sharma, into space. The country of a billion people is already a member of the elite nuclear club. Now it can join other big players in space.

At a time, when India hasn’t got enough paved roads, uninterrupted power supply, and clean drinking water in thousands of its villages, its strength of will to reach a little Indian cuboid on the surface of the Moon adds altogether a distinct dimension of its aptitude, apparently, more political than scientific.

Isro (Indian Space Research Organisation) is sending the Chandrayaan 1 on a two-year orbital mission to provide a detailed map of the mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics of the Moon’s surface. It is expected to reach lunar orbit in 15 days.

As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put it, India’s scientific community has once again done the country proud. When the scope for cooperation in the space science related research is vastly expanding for India, its knack for joining the scientific mainstream, and occupying its rightful place in the deep space community deserves recognition.

Landing an unmanned mission on Moon will allow India to take a quantum leap in its space research competence with a consequential impact on its growth.

By launching the lunar orbiter, India has ensured its participation in the cutting edge multilateral scientific effort in the field of space science research. Notably, the Indian lunar orbiter’s imagery will now even decide the future lunar outpost for Nasa.

That’s not all. The orbiter has a good aim at further identifying water ice-laden spots at Moon with a United States-provided low-power imaging radar, which is one of two US experiments on the Indian Moon mission.

Chandrayaan 1 offers India an extraordinary opportunity to forge ties with the global players that in future would have a substantial stake in ruling our cosmos. The country is hoping that the mission will boost its space programme into the same league as other Asian powerhouse Japan and China. As well as looking to carve out a larger slice of the lucrative commercial satellite launch market, India, China and Japan also see their space programme as an important symbol of their global stature and economic progress.

Even though, India right now has no plans to land an Indian on the moon, it is attempting to attain goals that may not involve humans at all.

By firing a probe vehicle for lunar landing after tracking polar orbits for satellites, the Indian scientists are not unaware of the possibility of the Moon becoming a strategic defence site in the future.

Moon can soon be a launch pad for space vehicles for exploration, and commercial exploitation. And it is these remarkable futuristic  prospects that India is exploring by reaching out for the Moon.