Chandrayaan - India's Moon Mission

Chandrayaan-1 ISRO – India’s Moon Mission
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched its first moon mission a few hours ago, using a domestically produced rocket system. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL-C11) lifted-off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Wednesday morning at around 6.40 am. This satellite will be tooling about for two years, primarily modeling the surface of the moon.
Large crowds had gathered at Sriharikota since early Wednesday morning to see this historic event.
India has joined what’s shaping up as a 21st century space race with Chinese and Japanese crafts already in orbit around the moon. There are plans to put the first Indian into space by 2014 and to launch a manned lunar mission by 2020 which is four years ahead of China’s target date.
It was truly a historic moment for the entire country.
India's unmanned moon mission Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has beamed two pictures that displays many large and small craters on the moon surface.
The pictures taken by the spacecraft's Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on November 15 over the polar region of the moon shows many large and small craters, ISRO sources said.
Another picture sent by TMC has filmed the bright terrain on the lower left of the rim of 117 km wide moretus crater and the equatorial region of the moon.
The picture shows the uneven surface of the moon with numerous craters. On the lower left, part of the Torricelli crater is seen.

This is the picture of moon's surface taken from lunar orbit by Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft's Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) on November 15, 2008. Taken over the polar region of the moon, the picture shows many large and numerous small craters. The bright terrain on the lower left is the rim of 117 km wide Moretus crater.


Image comment: Moon Impact Probe's lunar close-up
Image credits: ISRO
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