India probe set to crash on moon

India probe set to crash on moon

edition.cnn.com

A TV-sized probe adorned with a painted Indian flag is set to crash on the moon Friday as part of New Delhi's first unmanned lunar mission, Indian space officials said.

"This will be a hard landing," said Bangalore Ramachandra Rao Guruprasad, a spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization. "But one of the objectives of this probe is to understand the moon for future soft landings."

(visit the link for the full news article)

Go India! I really hope that they are less secretive than the other space agencies.

One thing I can't understand is why they have to "understand the moon for future soft landings" when they surely could have consulted with NASA experts who have already been there, done that.
Or am I just being naive?

edition.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Good find S&F

You would have thought that if they are doing this landing for tests and for future landlings on the moon then the US or any other country have not shared their knowledge of the moon with India.

If this is the case then you can also expect the US and any other country will not be able to force India to be silent about any findings to the general public.

(Hopefully )

reply to post by farther84


I like your thinking - they might be really p'd off at NASA so will they deliberately do the opposite of what they are told to do (like a precocious teenager)?

However the US will threaten to pull all the financial backing they have in the enormous Call Centre industry, and India will be forced to toe the line.

Seriously, with countries like Japan, China and India engaged in a new and very significant space race, we the great unwashed masses might actually benefit with real knowledge sharing for a change.

The New Space Race

Space Age 1 opened a door only to reveal another door. Beyond that next door, we will see something entirely new and different. We may see a jungle, a cosmos that must, logically, be teeming with life, instead of the desert to which we have grown accustomed. Or we may just see ourselves. Again. Either way, space is, once again, the next big thing.

Just to update my post, the probe hit the moon on Friday night according to plans. Here is the article:
Full Story

A TV-size probe adorned with a painting of the Indian flag successfully rammed into the moon Friday evening as part of the country's first unmanned lunar mission, Indian space officials said.

Space official Shiv Kumar said the 34-kilogram probe hit the moon surface traveling at 1.6 kilometers per second, which is a speed of 5,760 kilometers per hour (3,579 mph).

I thought they were testing for future soft landings ... so surely they would try to land the probe as softly as possible and gain more knowledge through intact instruments? This does not make sense to me unless they try hard and soft landings to get a good spread of data.

I don't want to start a new thread so will keep on updating this thread as new developments come through:
The probe that crash landed at approx 5000 kilometers per hour on the moon is now sending back images!
Story

These indians sure know how to build tough space craft! This whole operations is starting to ring warning bells - first they said the probe was to test future soft landings, and now they are saying that they are testing for:

Helium 3, an isotope which is very rare on earth but is sought to power nuclear fusion and could be a valuable source of energy in the future

What is the real story here? Personally I think its great that we are getting pictures but it seems obvious that India is not being open about their real mission to the Moon.