Russia to Build India’s Lunar Lander/Rover; ISRO Aims for Mars, Sun

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After the Moon, ISRO Aims for the Sun
ITExaminer.com

Riding high on the success of Chandrayaan-I, ISRO plans to launch Chandrayaan-2 in 2012. Chandrayaan-2 will be launched on India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The mission has been allocated a budget of $86.6 million (Rs 425 crore). Chandrayaan-2 will comprise a lander and a robotic rover, which will soft land on the moon. The robot will take samples from the lunar surface for analysis and will transmit the data back to the earth.  ISRO has already signed a pact with the Russian federal space agency (Roskosmos) for the mission. According to the pact, Roskosmos will be responsible for the Lander/Rover.

While Chandrayaan-1 is yet to unload many of its secrets, ISRO is aggressively pursuing its future projects such as the solar mission, Aditya, a satellite to study solar emissions. With the design in place, the mission will be launched in a couple of years. Aditya is reportedly the first space based solar mission planned to study corona, the sun’s outer layer. There are limitations to studying corona from the earth as it is visible only during solar eclipses. The earth’s atmosphere also scatters sunlight. This makes a space mission to study corona even more significant.

ISRO’s study on a Mars mission is also underway. The orbiter mission to Mars aims to study the Martian atmosphere, weather and solar wind-Mars interactions. According to ISRO, setting up a base in the moon could help future space explorations. A long trip to a celestial body such as the Mars could use the moon as an intermediate base. Mission to Mars is likely to could happen around 2019. Missions to other planets could well become a reality in the long term.

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3 Responses to “Russia to Build India’s Lunar Lander/Rover; ISRO Aims for Mars, Sun”


  1. 1 Pankaj Shreyas Rao

    Motivation of ISRO launches are against the interest of our nation. It is shameful to note that all these rocket launches were done for projecting Mr.Nair for getting his service extension at the cost of the GSLV research and development. Stupid SUN mission is aimed for nasty publicity among low profile public who doesn’t know the difference between SUN and MOON!….An intellectually challenged ISRO Chief Mr.Nair is a burden to ISRO and UPA Gov. After reading the below report public will get the feeling of ISRO racket. Beware of Mr.Nair. Jai Hind
    ————————-
    PLEASE READ the below report, which Dr.Manmohan Singh is processing now.
    ———————

    forwarded mail attached……shocking ISRO corruption news …..

    AN OPEN LETTER TO DR.MANMOHAN SINGH The Hon’ble Prime Minister of India

    Sir,

    Sub: ISRO (False) News Maker and his SUN Mission!

    Once you had highlighted to our Nation that science must be harnessed in full. We too agree with you, Sir but the fact is that our Nation’s top research organization’s (ISRO) management is not capable to retain the best talents for meeting the needs of our country due to the unhealthy and unproductive working culture created by the present intellectually challenged ISRO Chairman Mr.(Dr.) G.Madhavan Nair (66). Now Mr.Nair is acting like a third-rated politician for publicity. Mr.Nair’s recent announcement through all TV media/press for SUN Mission created a VERY BAD image to the ISRO Scientists and now they are dejected to face even the high school students, public and scientific community due to embracing questions on SUN Mission. International forum is fingering the Scientific Community of India and laughing on Nair’s SUN mission. This was visible reflected during the Centenary Conference at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Nobody clapped their hands when some of the delegates from your office made passing reference on MOON MISSION success because Scientific community is aware of the real truth behind the MOON MISSION. Report reveals that even the Group D employees are laughing but our poor media seems keeping selective deafness presumably due to the ISRO Chairman’s post flight treat! The ISRO community will not be wonder to hear Mr.Nair’s further brainless statement “awaiting central ministry approval” on “MANNED MISSION TO SUN” for getting top NEWS MAKER award from some local daily. A man with minimum common sense will not make these types of statements openly. Sir, you can now easily infer how much blunder Mr.Nair is making within ISRO. If anybody opposes his blunders he/she will be demoralized in all respect. This is the main reason that most of the graduates/postgraduates from the top institutes of our country are leaving from ISRO. Mr.Nair made open comments that he will manage ISRO with diploma holders. Once this brains drain topic was came up for discussion before the Parliament but it ended without solution. Having known the ISRO unhealthy working culture the high profile Ph.D candidates are reluctant to apply to ISRO. We wonder why our media is NOT questioning Mr.Nair and his SUN Mission? Why they are not asking whereabouts of the Indian Flag carried by the CHANDRAYAAN? Why media is not asking about the useful outcome of the MOON MISSION. Why media is not revealing Mr.Nair’s hidden agenda? We heard that the popular Malayalam News paper figured ISRO Chairman’s name for NEWS MAKER AWARD-2008. We do have sympathy about it owing to the fact that our MOON MISSION was not a technological success because its main objective was not yet met; moreover the whereabouts of the instruments and the Indian Flag carrying the MOON IMPACT PROBE (MIP) is not known. Our service rules prohibit us to make open statement against Mr.Nair and his unproductive, dishonest and illegal dealings; so this communication to a talented Prime Minister like you, Sir for necessary action for examining the matter through an independent outside agency aiming to replace Mr.Nair from ISRO. Also you may please take necessary step for the smooth exit of 66 year old Mr.Nair from both ISRO and its connected ISRO-ANTRIX cooperation forthwith. Now Mr.Nair is planning MANNED MOON MISSION for further publicity and most of the central ministers without knowing the scientific fact appreciating the project. We must say that Mr.Nair is abusing the PSLV rocket for publicity instead of focusing on basic research for GSLV rocket development for getting revenue to the country, which is at the cost of the tax payees’ money. There is a say among common man “if you give poor mileage vehicle to your son he will spoil your family through big financial burden; similarly Mr.Nair is putting our country in burden through unproductive launches using the low performance PSLV for pleasing politicians under the pretext of Nations prestige (!!) for getting his undeserving service extension. Your advisor Prof.CNR Rao once commented we need Scientists for Nation building and not Managers of these type. Sir, please note that launching of GSLV is of urgent need to our country for that we need highly qualified Scientists. Henceforth we should not go to French Guyana for Satellite launching. Mr.Nair got hidden agenda in this regard. It will be unproductive to our country in all respect. Please divert fund for indigenization of GSLV on priority basis instead of approving unscientific missions. For meeting these challenges Sir, you may please find an internationally recognized Scientist on space science and technology with ethics and vision for the ISRO Chair/Secretary DoS post forthwith. As per your earlier published data we have only 157 Scientists and Engineers per million people involved in research and development. Korea (South) had 50 times more and the United States and Japan over 30 times more. Quality and output is another issue. In 10 years, China has overtaken India in the number of scientific research papers published in internationally peer-reviewed journals. In fact they published three times our number. Mr.Nair never published a paper in international journals. He had come up in ISRO through unfair way. We reserve further comments against ISRO Chair at this point of time. If the UPA government further entertain the BJP nominated Mr.Nair, the ISRO News Maker, our qualified Scientists number will decrease further exponentially, which will scuttle the development of our nation. Forwarded to you for your thoughtful decision at an early date.
    JAI HIND With warm regards,
    Scientific community of ISRO BANGALORE
    Cc: News Maker-2008 Award Committee / Press

  2. 2 dANCAN

    bLAH BLAH BLAH. Wenever India succeds in achieving a scientific goal, mosquitoes like the above. Please google the Aditya ,mission and find out the details before getting too excited with a negative publicity.Here is one http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/After_moon_odyssey_its_Mission_Sun_for_ISRO/articleshow/3699465.cms. Sun mission does not mean landing on probe you fool. I pity your thinking ability.

  3. 3 Kalidasa Murugan

    Dear Readers,
    The greatest challenge in the Aerospace industry is the material selection. We don’t have any material in this world, which is capable to withstand high temperatures > 3000 deg C. The available high density refractory material (Magnesium 100 % Mgo) is not even capable to withstand a temperature above 2750 deg C. There is NO magic in industry for overcoming this temperature. Therefore one has to discover a composite material or find a technique to explore the high temperature zone of SUN without damaging the sensors/exploration probes. Note that even ISRO could not drop their MOON IMPACT PROBE (MIP) on the MOON surface (false claim is an open secret now). It is presumed that MIP melted before reaching the MOON surface because it has gone through high temperature zone. Without meeting these challenges the intention of Mr.Nair for making unknowingly (1) the FOOLISH comments about SUN mission in front of the media is OBVIOUS to those clever people who learn high school physics systematically. I being a metallurgist thought to share my views due to disputed arguments. There are many FOOLS (relatively speaking) for supporting his SUN mission. No doubt both FOOLS and TALENTS can think BIG. GOOD LUCK for your exploration.
    Dr.Gapala sawmy Iyer

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