The
Moon Impact Probe (
MIP) developed by the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)The Indian Space Research Organisation is the primary body for space research under the control of the government of India, and one of the leading space research organisations in the world. It was established in its modern form in 1969 as a result of coordinated efforts initiated earlier...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
's national space agency, was a
lunarThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
probe that was released by ISRO's Chandrayaan-1
lunar remote sensingThe physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, impacted the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of exploration had been observation. The invention of the optical telescope brought about the first leap...
orbiter which in turn was launched, on 22 October, 2008, aboard a modified version of ISRO's
Polar Satellite Launch VehicleThe Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle , commonly known by its abbreviation PSLV, is an expendable launch system developed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation...
.
The Moon Impact Probe separated from the moon-orbiting Chandrayaan-1 on 14 November 2008, 20:06 and crashed, as planned, into the lunar south pole after a controlled descent.
The
Moon Impact Probe (
MIP) developed by the
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)The Indian Space Research Organisation is the primary body for space research under the control of the government of India, and one of the leading space research organisations in the world. It was established in its modern form in 1969 as a result of coordinated efforts initiated earlier...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
's national space agency, was a
lunarThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
probe that was released by ISRO's Chandrayaan-1
lunar remote sensingThe physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, impacted the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of exploration had been observation. The invention of the optical telescope brought about the first leap...
orbiter which in turn was launched, on 22 October, 2008, aboard a modified version of ISRO's
Polar Satellite Launch VehicleThe Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle , commonly known by its abbreviation PSLV, is an expendable launch system developed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation...
.
The Moon Impact Probe separated from the moon-orbiting Chandrayaan-1 on 14 November 2008, 20:06 and crashed, as planned, into the lunar south pole after a controlled descent. The MIP struck the Shackleton Crater at 20:31 on 14 November 2008 releasing underground debris that could be analysed by the orbiter for presence of water ice. With this mission, India became the fifth entity to reach the lunar surface. Other entities to have done so are the former
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the
European Space Agency|owner = |headquarters = Paris|spaceport = Guiana Space Centre|image = ESA LOGO.svg|size = 240px|acronym = ESA|established = 1975|administrator = Jean-Jacques Dordain...
(currently owned by 18 member nations) and
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Kalam's Vision
The probe was a product of former
PresidentThe President of India or Rashtrapati is the head of state and first citizen of India, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. In theory, the President possesses considerable power...
Abdul KalamAvul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam , born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam^, was the eleventh President of India, serving from 2002 to 2007, he was elected during the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party, led ruling coalition, under prime minister...
's vision who felt that since the Chandrayaan orbiter was already going so near to the moon, the mission would have more scientific relevance if the probe was included. He believed that the moon could not be left to a few countries and that India should not be left behind. He suggested the probe to ISRO where it was supported enthusiastically.
The inclusion of a flag on the probe led to confused media disccussion about India planting its flag. The Times of India also reported a political motive by former president Abdul Kalam as "He believed that if this was done, India could always stake a claim to a portion of the Moon." At the same time, The Indian Express reported Kalam as saying "no nation can claim the moon as its own. The resources of the moon should be a common property and that is one of the aims of the moon mission."
Mission objectives
The main objectives of the MIP were to demonstrate the technologies for reaching a specified location on the Moon, qualifying technologies required for any future soft landing missions, and scientific exploration of the moon from close range just prior to the impact.
The probe was designed to collide with the lunar surface and eject underground soil which could then be analysed by instruments on the orbiting Chandrayaan for the presence of water ice, and organic and other materials.
Payload
The MIP carried three instruments:
- Radar Altimeter
A radar altimeter, radio altimeter, low range radio altimeter or simply RA measures altitude above the terrain presently beneath an aircraft or spacecraft...
– which measured the altitude of the probe during descent and provided information on qualifying technologies for future landing missions. The operating frequency band was 4.3 GHzGHZ or GHz may refer to:# Gigahertz .# Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state - a quantum entanglement of three particles.# Galactic Habitable Zone - the region of a galaxy that is favorable to the formation of life....
± 100 MHz.
- Video Imaging System – acquired close range images of the surface of the Moon during descent and before impact. The video imaging system consisted of an analog
- In electronics :* Analog signal, a variable signal that is continuous in time and amplitude, as opposed to a digital or discrete signal:** Analog circuits, circuits which use analog signals...
CCD camera.
- Mass Spectrometer based payload CHACE – measured trace constituents of the lunar atmosphere during descent. This instrument was a quadrupole mass spectrometer
The quadrupole mass analyzer is one type of mass analyzer used in mass spectrometry. As the name implies, it consists of 4 circular rods, set perfectly parallel to each other. In a quadrupole mass spectrometer the quadrupole mass analyzer is the component of the instrument responsible for...
with a mass resolution of 0.5 amuThe unified atomic mass unit or atomic mass unit , or dalton or, sometimes, universal mass unit , is a unit of mass used to express atomic and molecular masses...
and sensitivities to partial pressures on the order of 1.3×10-11 pascalThe pascal is the SI derived unit of pressure, stress, Young's modulus and tensile strength. It is a measure of force per unit area, defined as one newton per square metre...
s.
The probes external surface had four oval shaped anodised aluminium plates measuring 120mm X 180 mm on which the image of the Indian flag was depicted, complete with the
Emblem of IndiaThe emblem of India is an adaptation from the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka.Emperor Ashoka the Great erected the capital atop an Ashoka Pillar to mark the spot where Gautama Buddha first taught the Dharma and where the Buddhist Sangha was founded...
and the words "
Satyameva Jayate"Satyameva Jayate" is the national motto of India. It is inscribed in Devanagari script at the base of the national emblem, which is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Asoka at Sarnath, near Varanasi in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The origin of the motto is a well-known mantra...
". These plates were attached to each one of the four vertical sides of the probe. As per ISRO specifications these plates had to endure a temperature range from -50 degrees
celsiusCelsius is a temperature scale that is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius , who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death...
and as high as +150 degrees celsius.
Mission chronology
India launched the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft using a modified version of the
PSLV C11The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle , commonly known by its abbreviation PSLV, is an expendable launch system developed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation...
on 22 October 2008 from
Satish Dhawan Space CentreThe Satish Dhawan Space Centre is the launch centre for the Indian Space Research Organisation . It is located in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, India and is also referred to as Sriharikota. The centre is located 80 kilometres north of Chennai in South India...
,
SriharikotaSriharikota is a barrier island off the coast of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in India. It houses India's only satellite launch centre in the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and is used by the Indian Space Research Organisation to launch satellites using multi-stage rockets such as the Polar...
,
Andhra PradeshAndhra Pradesh , abbreviated A.P., is a state situated on the south-eastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Hyderabad...
at 06:22
ISTIndian Standard Time is the time observed throughout India and Sri Lanka, with a time offset of UTC+05:30. India does not observe daylight saving time or other seasonal adjustments, although DST was used briefly during the Sino–Indian War of 1962 and the Indo–Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971...
(00:52 UTC).
The lunar probe separated from Chandrayaan-1, in a 102 km circular polar orbit around the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
, at 20:06
ISTIndian Standard Time is the time observed throughout India and Sri Lanka, with a time offset of UTC+05:30. India does not observe daylight saving time or other seasonal adjustments, although DST was used briefly during the Sino–Indian War of 1962 and the Indo–Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971...
on 14 November 2008. After separation, it first fired its spin up rockets and then its retro rocket to lower itself to an orbit intersecting the lunar surface. While descending, the MIP continuously sent information back to the Chandrayaan-1 orbiter which in turn beamed the information back to earth. After a 25 minute controlled descent, it struck the Moon at 20:31 IST, 14 November 2008 at a speed of 1.69 kilometers per second (approximately 6100 km/h or 3800 miles per hour). The crash destroyed the probe. It crashed into Shackleton Crater, at the lunar south pole, at 20:31 on 14 November 2008 releasing underground material that could be analyzed by the orbiter for the presence of water ice.
Discovery of water
On the 25 September, 2009, ISRO announced that the MIP had discovered water on the moon just before impact. This announcement was made after the discovery of water was announced on September 24, 2009 by
ScienceScience is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals. The peer-reviewed journal, first published in 1880 is circulated weekly and has a print subscriber base of around 130,000...
magazine by the NASA payload
Moon Mineralogy MapperThe Moon Mineralogy Mapper is one of two instruments that NASA contributed to India's first mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-1, launched October 22, 2008...
carried on board Chandrayaan-1.
It gifted the answer to the millennia-old question whether water is there in Earth’s moon when it led to the discovery of water in its vapour phase by the CHACE (CHandra’s Altitudinal Composition Explorer) payload onboard the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) and complementarily in its solid phase by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) payload onboard the main orbiter in the Chandrayaan I mission. This ‘discovery-class-of-finding’ by CHACE was achieved by direct in situ measurement of the lunar atmosphere during the descend journey of the MIP to the Lunar South Pole, while M3 discovered water in ice form by remote sensing techniques. As water cannot retain its liquid phase in the lunar environment because of its own vapour pressure and the ultra-high vacuum prevailing there, it can be found in solid (ice) and gaseous (vapour) phases. While the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), a payload by NASA, onboard Chandrayaan I lunar orbiter has detected, by mapping almost 97 % of the lunar surface using remote sensing techniques, the presence of water in ice form in higher latitudes especially in the polar caps, the CHACE payload in the lunar impactor (MIP) has directly detected water in its gaseous form along 14 degree E meridian from 45 degree N to 90 degree S latitude, with a latitudinal resolution of around 0.10 and altitudinal resolution of ~ 250 m from 98 km altitude till impact .