Business Standard

Chandrayaan scientists to unravel key data on Jan 29

Image

Ramnatha Shenoy PTI Bangalore

Key scientists behind the Chandrayaan-1 mission are gathering here on Thursday for the first time since the October 22 launch of India's maiden moon exploration to analyse preliminary data generated using payloads on board.

The day-long session at ISRO Satellite Centre here assumes significance in view of some encouraging findings thrown up after India's historic moon odyssey.

Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation G Madhavan Nair told PTI that the agency has invited the scientists and expects representation from scientists behind Indian payloads (scientific instruments) as well those from guest instruments, including from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

 

Chandrayaan-1 has 11 instruments on board -- five from India, three from ESA (one of which is developed jointly with India and other with Indian contribution), one from Bulgaria and two from the US.

An ISRO official said, "It will be a closed-door meeting. The scientists will analyse data from preliminary findings". The session would be chaired by senior ISRO scientist George Joseph.

Preliminary findings from the data generated by three instruments on board Chandrayaan-1 -- the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), Mini-SAR and the Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (CIXS) -- are encouraging.

Don't miss the most important news and views of the day. Get them on our Telegram channel

First Published: Jan 27 2009 | 12:18 PM IST

Explore News