AstrotalkUK

Not for profit website/blog on astronomy, space and my writing

ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 – detected in lunar orbit

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Using an innovative radar technique, NASA has been able to detect two spacecraft in lunar orbit from the surface of the Earth. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched in 2009 and was in lunar orbit at the same time as Chandrayaan-1. Although a joint experiment was designed for both spacecraft, it did not work out. LRO is still operating in Lunar Orbit today. Communication with India’s Chandrayaan-1 was lost in August 2009.  At the time ISRO engineers estimated that Chandrayaan-1’s orbit would decay and it would impact on the surface of the Moon by around 2012.  The new microwave radar technique using three of the world’s largest radio telescopes (Goldstone, Arecibo and Green Bank) first located the Chandrayaan-1 in July 2016. Remarkably it was still pretty much in its 200km polar orbit going round the Moon every 2 hours.

Chandrayaan-1 was originally (November 2008) in a 100km orbit which was raised to 200 km (May 2009)  to overcome internal heating problems. Although not welcomed at the time because the resolution of the data captured by several of the onboard instruments was reduced given the higher altitude. This raised orbit is probably the reason it survives in lunar orbit today.

One of the better write-ups, from 2009 about the demise of the Chandrayaan-1 mission from an accomplished Indian journalist T.S. Subramanian here.

Episode 66: Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

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November 21st 2013 was the 50th anniversary of a rocket launched from India in to space. The launch itself was an all Indian affair but with lots of international support. The rocket was American, carried a French Sodium Vapour payload with assisted by a computer and a helicopter from the Soviet Union. From this meagre beginning, India has become a key player not only  in building and launching rockets  but also designing , building and deploying satellites.

This episode was recorded on the site of that first launch. Then  known as the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launch Station and is today known as the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.  Sundaram Ramakrishnan, the current director of the  Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) talks about his 4 decade long career with the Indian Space Research Organisation. He has has played a central role throughout the development of India’s most reliable launcher – the  Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

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Episode 65: ISRO – The early years

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URRoa
Prof. UR Rao

The Indian Space Research Organisation formally came in to being in 1972. By then, India had been developing its space program for almost a decade. The first launch to space from Indian soil was a two stage Nike-Apache rocket supplied by USA with a  sodium  payload from France. The rocket delivered a vertical trail of sodium vapour in space above the twilight sky of the south eastern coast of Kerala on 21st November 1963.

In this episode, professor UR Rao talks about his rich and diverse career. Professor Rao completed his Phd under Dr Vikram Sarabhai, then went on to work for NASA at MIT and in Texas exploring the Solar System with instruments on NASA’s Pioneer and Explorer spacecraft. He returned to India at Sarabhai’s request and after heading up the Physical Research Laboratory, in 1984 became the chairman of the Indian Space Research organisation. He served in that role until 1994.

During his 81 years, he has participated in many significant areas in space and science exploration.  Several key individuals associated with space and science research including CV Raman, Robert Millikan, Ed Stone, Arthur Clark,  James Van Allen , Abdus Salam and Vikram Sarabhai were individual he knew personally and some were colleagues.

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Episode 61: Reg Turnill on Wernher von Braun

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Reg Turnill wit von Braun
Reg Turnill with Wernher von Braun 1977

Like so many in the “space community” I was saddened to hear of the passing of Reg Turnill. He was  the BBC’s aerospace correspondent but is  best known  for covering the American Space program  throughout the 60s and 70s that he documents so well in his book Moonlandings: An eye witness account.

He was the BBC’s representative in Moscow at Gagarin’s post flight press conference and told me in episode 41 of his experience when I went to meet him in January 2011.

Reg captures the ambiguity of the brilliant Wernher von Braun who he got to know so well that he called him a friend and yet believed that he was a war criminal and should have been hanged.

In this 30 minute podcast , the first a six minutes is  telephone conversation recorded on 3rd November 2011 followed by extracts from his talk at the UK Space Conference 5th July 2011 “The von Braun that I knew”. Reg shares three of his audio interviews with von Braun, the audio quality of the 2nd and 3rd is better than the first.

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