MYLSWAMY ANNADURAI

• BORN ON 2ND JULY 1958

• OBTAINED HIS M.E DEGREE IN ELECTRONICS IN 1982.

• IN THE SAME YEAR HE JOINED IN ISRO

• PROJECT DIRECTOR OF CHANDRAYAAN-1 AND CHANDRAYAAN -2 .

ABOUT CHANDRAYAN• IT IS A MOON – TRAVELER OR MOON VEHICLE.• IT WAS INDIA’S FIRST UNMANNED LUNAR PROBE.• IT WAS LAUNCHED BY ISRO IN OCTOBER 2008

FROM SRIHARI KOTA IN ANDRAPRADESH AND OPERATED UNTIL AUGUST 2009 .

• THE MISSION INCLUDED A LUNAR ORBITER AND A IMPACTOR.

• IT CARRIED FIVE ISRO PAYLOADS AND SIX PAYLOADS FROM OTHER SPACE AGENCIES INCLUDING NASA, ESA, AND THE BULGARIAN AEROSPACE AGENCY WHICH WERE CARRIED FREE OF COST.

• CHANDRAYAAN OPERATED FOR 312 DAYS AND ACHIEVED 95% OF ITS PLANNED OBJECTIVES.

• THE FOLLOWING ARE ITS ACHIEVEMENTS:

The discovery of wide spread presence of water molecules in lunar soil.

CHANDRAYAAN’S MOON MINERALOGY MAPPER HAS CONFIRMED THAT MOON WAS ONCE COMPLETELY MOLTEN.

EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY PAYLOAD CHANDRAYAAN-1 X-RAYS IMAGING SPECTROMETER (CXIS)- DETECTED MORE THAN TWO DOZEN WEAK SOLAR FLARES DURING THE MISSION.

THE TERRAIN MAPPING CAMERA ON BOARD CHANDRAYAAN-1 HAS RECORDED IMAGES OF THE LANDING SITE OF US SPACE CRAFT APOLLO-15 , APOLLO-11.

• IT HAS PROVIDED HIGH-RESOLUTION SPECTRAL DATA ON THE MINERALOGY OF THE MOON

• LUNAR LASER RANGING INSTRUMENT (LLRI) COVERED BOTH THE LUNAR POLES AND ADDITIONAL LUNAR REGION OF INTEREST.

• THE X-RAY SIGNATURES OF ALUMINUM, MAGNESIUM AND SILICON WERE PICKED UP BY THE CXIS X-RAY CAMERA.

• THE BULGARIAN PAYLOAD CALLED RADIATION DOSE MONITOR(RADOM) WAS ACTIVATED ON THE DAY OF LAUNCH ITSELF AND WORKED TILL THE MISSION END.

• MORE THAN 40000 IMAGES HAVE BEEN TRANSMITTED BY CHANDRAYAAN CAMERA IN 75 DAYS.

• THE TERRAIN MAPPING CAMERA ACQUIRED IMAGES OF PEAKS AND CRATERS.THE MOON CONSISTS MOSTLY OF CRATERS.

• CHANDRAYAAN BEAMED BACK ITS FIRST IMAGES OF THE EARTH IN ITS ENTIRETY.

• CHANDRAYAAN-1 HAS DISCOVERED LARGE CAVES ON THE LUNAR SURFACE THAT CAN ACT AS HUMAN SHELTER ON THE MOON.

FLAWS• After the completion of all the major mission

objectives, the orbit of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which was at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface since November 2008, had to be raised to 200 km due to malfunctions.

• The orbit raising manoeuvres were carried out between 09:00 and 10:00 IST on 19 May 2009.

• The spacecraft in this higher altitude enabled further studies on orbit perturbations, gravitational field variation of the Moon and also enabled imaging lunar surface with a wider swath.

• However, it was later revealed that the true reason for the orbit change was that it was an attempt to keep the temperature of the probe down.

SENSOR FAILURE

• The star sensors, a device used for pointing attitude determination (orientation), failed in orbit after nine months of operation.

• Afterward, the orientation of Chandrayaan was determined using a back-up procedure using a two-axis Sun sensor and taking a bearing from an Earth station.

• This was used to update three axis gyroscopes which enabled spacecraft operations.

• The second failure, detected on 16 May, was attributed to excessive radiation from the Sun

That’s it folks !!