Chandrayaan-1 Successfully Reaches 100km Lunar Orbit

Matt_dk writes "Today, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has successfully reached its intended operational orbit at a height of about 100 km from the lunar surface. This followed a series of three orbit reduction manoeuvres conducted during the past three days by repeatedly firing the spacecraft's 440 Newton Liquid Engine. The next major event of Chandrayaan-1 mission planned in the coming days is the release of Moon Impact Probe (MIP) from the spacecraft and its eventual hitting of the moon's surface."

Comments

Re:Is that an I J or K motor?

[OSDever]

I imagine that's sustained Newtons for the duration of the fuel. So yeah, it's technically a liquid powered engine with the thrust capabilities of an I, but with significantly more fuel. An I engine should be plenty enough for maneuvering a small spacecraft in space.

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The above comments are the opinions of a non-qualified amateur rocketry fan. Please take with ~ 2.7 ounces of salt.

Re:Just what we needed in this financial crisis!

[iammani]

I know you are trying to funny. But this moon mission has indeed prompted NASA scientist of Indian Origin to knock at Indian ISRO's door. Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/space-there-nasa-scientists-call-up-isro/76741-11.html?from=search

Re:apollo lander module?

[baKanale]

Not to call doubt upon the Moon landing, but retroreflectors have been placed on the Moon as part of the unmanned Lunokhod program. According to the link you posted:

"The unmanned Soviet Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2 rovers carried smaller arrays. Reflected signals were initially received from Lunokhod 1, but no return signals have been detected since 1971, at least in part due to some uncertainty in its location on the Moon. Lunokhod 2's array continues to return signals to Earth."

Now, I dislike the Moon landing conspiracy nutters as much as the next guy, but the retroreflector thing isn't going to convince them. But then again nothing really will...

Re:How do you pronounce

[oxygen_deprived]

As a native hindi speaking Indian, I vouch for the above response to be fairly accurate :-) Just to make it a little more accurate, (ch) should sound like the ch of chicken. (andra) is like "un" + "the" + "ra", spoken in rapid succession ."un" sounds like "un" of "unknown". The "a" in "ra" is like how you say "a" as in "a boy". The yarn with a muted r, instead of a soft r is closer home. "chandra" means moon, and "yaan" means vehicle

Re:Just what we needed in this financial crisis!

[pkphilip]

The Chandrayaan mission cost India USD 87 million which is just a shade over the cost of a Boeing 737-900ER aircraft (USD 85 million).

That is actually less than half of what the chinese spent (USD 180+ million).

So yes, there is some truth to the fact that this is indeed a very low cost mission.

Re:How do you pronounce

[Alioth]

Why is it bad for a language to have its own word for a country? It's not exactly uncommon - for example, the Spanish call the United States "los Estados Unidos", rather than its name in English, and they call Americans "estadounidenses", literally United Statesians. Pretty much every language has its own words for names of countries. And for what it's worth, we call it Spain, but the Spanish call it España.