India's Chandrayaan Blasts Off To The Moon!

Originally posted by mikesingh
Pretty good pic!

But as phage has mentioned, it's all Grey! Damn!

Well call ArMaP he does wonders turning Mars pics into color

But my problem is that they cropped it I am working on getting the whole thing...

Originally posted by Phage That was my point.

Got your point... I was actually looking for another image. Seems I never got back to the magnetic anomalies page Drats...

I will toss it in again later when I find what I was looking for. Problem is a lot of the earlier work was done on ATS posts and it seems I never backed it up...

There is however a very interesting anomaly that shows up for Tycho when you look in infrared

The other day I have bleak memory of a press conference going on between ISRO and newschannels.
ISRO said, it will take another 1 month or so to bring out the TMC pics and data to be available to public.

Originally posted by zorgon
There is however a very interesting anomaly that shows up for Tycho when you look in infrared

Wow! Tycho IS a Hot Bod!! And moon doesn't even have molten interior (right?) for a magmatic plug to account for that. So what can it imply? Are there selenological possibilities of local overheatings?

[edit on 22/11/2008 by sentinel2107]

Originally posted by wolfgang1711
The other day I have bleak memory of a press conference going on between ISRO and newschannels.
ISRO said, it will take another 1 month or so to bring out the TMC pics and data to be available to public.

Hmm... but anti-anomaly(aka anomaly-busting) software should not take that long, what with the zippy hardware we got these days.

I'm not sure if this has been posted, here, already. However I was wondering if anyone new what "Chandrayaan" means in English for us "Nonspeaking Indian people". By the way no offence if for whatever reason Chandrayaan is not an Indian word.

Thanks,

-=TheMeanSeen=-

Originally posted by CSK222
I'm not sure if this has been posted, here, already. However I was wondering if anyone new what "Chandrayaan" means in English for us "Nonspeaking Indian people". By the way no offence if for whatever reason Chandrayaan is not an Indian word.

Thanks,

-=TheMeanSeen=-

Means -- the Moon Vehicle. Chandra stands for Moon, Yaan is for a flying vehicle

Chandrayaan is formed of two words:

Chandra - meaning the moon

and Yaan - Vehicle.

Chandrayaan is a Sanskrit word.

Armap once again many thanks for coming out with the pixel comparison. If it's possible can you explain how you arrived at the pixel calculation of around 20m resolution. What i read is the picture was taken at 100 km altitude.

Wolfgang: Hi, where did you get the info that it will take a month for more pics. I'm searching for info last few days and nothing seems available. I wish ISRO continues to be open and share more information with us.

reply to post by contradunce


I think 'Isis 3' is the key to your answer.. btw I have absolutely no idea what Isis 3 is and haven't looked it up either..
Either way.. ArMaP's your guy!

reply to post by contradunce


Daedalus3 is right, ISIS 3 is the answer.

It's the software used to create many of the Clementine mosaics we see can see on several sites, and I have only "scratched the surface" of what can be done with it.

What I have done in this case was use the Clementine image (that I got from the PDS Imaging Node). The IMG files available on that site (and on other PDS sites) are already the result of processing, so they include camera parameters that ISIS 3 uses to make the measurements in metres, for example.

As I knew the measurements of that area with the aid of the Clementine photo (10.7 km), measuring the Chandrayaan 1 image (but only with pixel measurements, 455 pixels) gave me a count of pixels for the equivalent size on the Clementine image, so a metres per pixel calculation was easy, as far as my measurements were correct, 10700 metres/455 pixels=23.51 metres per pixel.

[edit on 22/11/2008 by ArMaP]

reply to post by sentinel2107


That image was taken during a total lunar eclipse (from orbit). The moon has entered Earth's shadow after being fully exposed to sunlight. The warmer (brighter) areas are places where the surface has absorbed more heat than other areas.

MULTISPECTRAL THERMAL IMAGER OBSERVATIONS OF THE MOON DURING TOTAL ECLIPSE

There are other studies that show steady cooling over time with the changing phases.

[edit on 22-11-2008 by Phage]

Originally posted by Phage
That image was taken during a total lunar eclipse (from orbit). The moon has entered Earth's shadow after being fully exposed to sunlight. The warmer (brighter) areas are places where the surface has absorbed more heat than other areas.

MULTISPECTRAL THERMAL IMAGER OBSERVATIONS OF THE MOON DURING TOTAL ECLIPSE

There are other studies that show steady cooling over time with the changing phases.

Thanks Phage! So the case is that those areas absorb (and consequently emit) more heat than the other regions. According to the link you gave it has to do with the underlying material viz. those "hot spots" have more of the exposed underlying rocks as compared to the other areas.

Daedalus and Armap thanks very much indeed. I did open up a few links on the ISIS 3 site, but it sort of went over my head. But can a pixel of an image of the Clementine picture be considered equivalent to a pixel of the image of Chandrayaan? I read something in your link of special pixels. So it's possible to have special pixels in use that make equivalence an assumption?

Another aspect is that the craft when it took the pics was at 100 km polar orbit already. Can the resolution of the TMC be increased or decreased by some controls from ISTRAC.

Once again deeply appreciate your inputs, they have been very informative.

Another basic query: Is it possible for Deep Space Networks of countries to detect Craft orbiting the Moon. Like can the Chinese or Japanese DSN know or monitor movement of the Chandrayaan. Or can the Indians do the same with the Chang'e or Kaguya?


[edit on 22-11-2008 by contradunce]

[edit on 22-11-2008 by contradunce]

There's some good info on Chandrayaan's perfomance come in from the ISRO Chief:

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Nedumbassery: Almost all the major steps with regard to the course of Chandrayaan-1, the Indian moon mission, are complete and it will switch over to normal operation in a short while, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G. Madhavan Nair has said.

He told presspersons at the airport here on Saturday that only two more instruments aboard the craft had to be made operational and that might be done within a week.

“From there onwards, only some routine operations are left and everything is going according to the plans,” he said. The two science instruments of the U.S. aboard the spacecraft had become operational and they would start sending data within a week.

Mr. Nair said that with the terrain mapping camera of the Moon Impact Probe (MIP), stereoscopic pictures of the moon would be available, which, in turn, would help to have a better understanding of the height and shape of craters on the lunar surface.

“We are the only country to obtain pictures from such a closer distance. We have got pictures with a resolution of five metres followed by a Japanese probe which secured pictures only with a resolution of 10 metres,” he said.

On the ejection of the MIP from the space craft, he said the probe hit the lunar surface within 25 minutes and 10 seconds after leaving the mother craft and approached a crater named Shackleton. “During its fall from the lunar orbit, the instrument could take approach pictures of the crater,” he said.

Noting that the MIP was part of its technological demonstration, he said the previous missions around this region had not yielded the desired results

========

www.hindu.com...

Similar article as the one i posted above, little more info on the MIP:

========

On the ejection of the MIP from the space craft, he said the probe hit the lunar surface within 25 minutes and 10 seconds after leaving the mother craft and approached a crater named Shackleton. “During its fall from the lunar orbit, the instrument could take approach pictures of the crater,” he said.Noting that the MIP was part of its technological demonstration, he said the previous missions around this region had not yielded the desired results. However, Chandrayaan could keep track of the whole region with the approach pictures and hope to come out with a breaking result. This was an area with contrasting features of darkness in the whole on one side and sunlight throughout the year on a mountain nearby.

========

www.hindu.com...

Posted only excerpts.

Originally posted by contradunce

On the ejection of the MIP from the space craft, he said the probe hit the lunar surface within 25 minutes and 10 seconds after leaving the mother craft and approached a crater named Shackleton.

Lots of people are interested in the Shackleton crater. From an article published in SPACE.com in March 2007:

A Texas-based firm has drawn up plans for a manned expedition to the Moon to seek out the raw ingredients for what amounts to an orbital gas station for future spacecraft.

Under the plan, from Bill Stone of Austin's Stone Aerospace, Inc, a vanguard team of industrialists would explore the Shackleton Crater at the Moon's south pole to determine how much, if any, frozen water and other materials sits locked beneath the lunar regolith.

If enough resources are found, they could then be processed into spacecraft fuels and hauled into low-Earth orbit (LEO) for propellant-thirsty spacecraft at one-tenth the cost of launching them from Earth, according to the plan.

"Once initial funding is received to initiate the detailed planning effort, we expect to be open for business in LEO in the 2015 timeframe," Stone said in a statement, adding that the ambitious plan would likely cost about $15 billion and require significant international partnerships. "Only by operating commercially will this enterprise be successful."

To that end, Stone has formed Shackleton Energy Company (SEC). He discussed his plan in a March 10 presentation at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference in Monterey, California.

"This is water exploration first," SEC president Dale Tietz told SPACE.com Wednesday. "And if it's there, then our whole business plan is based upon, by 2015, having a very aggressive program to then process that with our own crews...bring it to low-Earth orbit and then open for business."

Among potential customers for SEC is NASA, which plans to launch astronauts aboard its new spacecraft - the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle - no later than 2015, with lunar missions slated for 2020. The Virginia-based firm Space Adventures, too, has announced plans in the past for space tourist flights around the Moon aboard a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft.

More here:
www.space.com...

Shackleton crater:

www.esa.int...

reply to post by ziggystar60


Ziggy, you've got to read some science fiction. Robert Heinlein wrote The Man Who Sold the Moon in 1949.

Harriman also has to tackle political problems. If getting to the Moon becomes an international political issue, it will sap his resources and leave him open to espionage and sabotage. He also aims to keep the Moon out of government ownership, something that will be impossible if he claims it on behalf of the United States[2]. Noting that the Moon passes directly overhead only in a narrow band north and south of the equator, he looks to common law which holds that property rights extend to infinity above a land parcel. On that basis, Mexico, Central and parts of South America, and corresponding countries in those latitudes around the world, have a claim on the Moon. The USA also has a claim, thanks to Florida and Texas extending into the band[3]. Starting a campaign around the world for countries to assert their rights in this matter, he engineers a compromise whereby the United Nations will manage the Moon, through one of its chartered corporations. Needless to say, Harriman owns the corporation.

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 22-11-2008 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage



Thanks for the reading tip, Phage. Perhaps fiction can be near the truth regarding the moon in this case. Always the money interests, always the big business involved.