Indian Probe Successfully lands on Moon

On Friday, India created history by placing it's national flag on moon surface. India's Moon Impact Probe (MIP) successfully landed on the lunar surface. The instrument, about the size of a computer monitor and with a mass of 35kg touched moon surface about 25 minutes after being detached from India’s first unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1. The probe was painted as the Indian tricolour. This is a historic moment for India’s 45-year-old space programme.

According to a spokesperson for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the landing of MIP was as per plan and the probe also transmitted lunar pictures to the mother ship during descent from about 100 km from the moon’s surface. The moon probe crash-landed in the Shackleton crater and successfully completed it's task.

The dimension of the MIP is 375 mm x 375 mm x 470 mm and it contains three instruments - Radar Altimeter, Video Imaging System and Mass Spectrometer. Scientists in the mission control center in India are happy with the initial success and all the scientific instruments/payloads would be commissioned sequentially.

Chandrayaan-1 was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota by PSLV-XL (PSLV-C11) on 22 October 2008. Now it is on a orbital mission to provide a detailed map of the mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics of the moon’s surface. Chandrayaan-1 is expected to work for two years.