Indian flag on the moon!! :)

T.K.Rohit| tnn

Sriharikota : On November 10 or 11, the Indian flag will crashland on the moon, kicking up dust, literally! When the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) is ejected from the Chandrayaan-I spacecraft onto the lunar surface, it will mark the country's leap into the bandwagon of countries aiming for the moon.

"A small Indian flag has been painted on the MIP. This is a matter of great pride and honour and when the MIP lands on the moon, it will signal India's entry into one of the intriguing aspects of the universe. The Indian tricolour has been painted of a size about 4 inches by 6 inches," ISRO officials told The Times of India on Saturday.

Courtesy:ISRO (This pic was not available for the story..So its now blogged" )

The 29 kg Moon Impact Probe which was originally not a part of the initial plans, was inducted into the payload at the insistence of former president Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. The payload developed by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram will help identify future landing sites on the moon and will also aid scientific explora-tion of the lunar surface. When ejected from the Chandrayaan-I spacecraft, it will crashland on the moon, which will kick up dust. The Mass Spectrometer on the MIP will gather scientific details from the dust and send it back.

The MIP is one of the 11 payloads on India's first moon mission, Chandrayaan-I, taken on board the PSLV-C-11 and is one of the five instruments fully designed and developed in India.

On October 22, the PSLV-C11, also called as the PSLV-XL because of the increased weight of the six strap on motors, will soar the skies at 6.20 am from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. It will travel to the vicin-ity of the moon by following a path called Lunar Transfer Trajectory (LTT).

When the spacecraft reaches the vicinity of the moon, the spacecraft is slowed down through a process to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical or-bit. When the orbital height of Chandrayaan-I is lowered to its intended 100 km height from the lunar surface, the MIP will be ejected from Chandrayaan-I at the earliest opportunity on to the lunar surface in a chosen area.

"About 20 days from the date of launch, Chandrayaan-I will be in the required moon orbit. So we are looking at November 8, around noon," M C Dathan, Director, SDSC told the media on Saturday.

The spacecraft, which is being readied at another building will be moved to the vehicle building by October 14, following which another four days work will be carried out to marry the spacecraft with the launch vehicle. On October 18, the vehicle with the payloads will be moved to the launchpad. The 50 hour countdown for the October 22 launch will begin at 4 am on October 20, he said.


When the media reached Sriharikota on Saturday morning, signs of the monsoon setting in showed up. Dark clouds hovered around the SDSC. However, Dathan allayed any fears of the launch not taking place on October 22. "Considering that the North East monsoon setting in on the same day as the launch, met experts will reach here six days before the launch and will monitor the situation," he said.

"Only if a cyclone occurs or extreme bad weather conditions prevail, will there be a problem with the launch. Otherwise, even under rains, the launch will take place," he added.