Chandrayaan 2 landing may have failed but here's what to expect from the orbiter

On 7 September 2019, the day Vikram Lander was scheduled to soft-land on the lunar surface, ISRO lost contact with the lander module comprising the Lander Vikram and Rover Pragyan, which came to be a hitch in India's ambitious space project Chandrayaan 2. However, despite the failed landing, this mission's orbiter will still be performing various crucial tasks. Principal scientific advisor Dr Vijay Raghavan reminds us of that in a long Twitter thread.

Raghavan reminds us that the mission comprised of an Orbiter, Lander and Rover. While ISRO may have lost communication with the Lander, the latter followed the planned descent trajectory from its orbit of 35 km to just below 2 km above the surface.

"Orbiter has already been placed in its intended orbit around the Moon and shall enrich our understanding of the moon’s evolution, map minerals, water molecules in the polar regions, using its eight state-of-the-art scientific instruments," he said. The launch and mission management has also ensured a long life of almost 7 years for the orbiter instead of the planned one year, he added.

Chandrayaan-2 launch was earlier scheduled for 15 July.

He also said that the success criteria were defined for each and every phase of the mission and so far 90 to 95 percent of the mission objectives have been accomplished and will continue to contribute to Lunar science.

Raghavan further points out the following science that will come from the orbiter during its course in space:

The Orbiter camera uses highest resolution cam in any lunar mission

6/n The Orbiter camera is the highest resolution camera (0.3m) in any lunar mission so far and has already started providing high-resolution images which will be immensely useful to the global scientific community.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

7/n Orbiter camera: The pictures I saw this morning were truly extraordinary. TMC 2 is a miniature version of the Terrain Mapping Camera used onboard the Chandrayaan 1 mission.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

Terrain Mapping Camera 2

The TMC 2 will prepare 3D maps of the lunar surface.

8/n TMcv2’s primary objective is mapping the lunar surface in the panchromatic spectral band (0.5-0.8 microns), high spatial resolution(5m), swathe(20 km from 100 km lunar polar orbit). Data will give clues about the Moon's evolution, prepare 3D maps of the lunar surface.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

XRF technique to detect elements

9/n CLASS measures X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectra to detect elements such as Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon, Calcium, Titanium, Iron, and Sodium. The XRF technique will detect these elements by measuring the characteristic X-rays they emit when excited by the Sun's rays.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

10/n XSM observes the X-rays emitted by the Sun and its corona, measures the intensity of solar radiation in these rays, and supports CLASS. Provides solar X-ray spectrum in the energy range of 1-15 keV

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

11/n XSM will provide high-energy resolution and high-cadence measurements (full spectrum every second) of solar X-ray spectra as input for analysis of data from CLASS.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

Volatile mapping of the Moon

12/n Imaging Infra-red spectrometer (IIRS) has two primary objectives: i. global mineralogical and volatile mapping of the Moon in the spectral range of ~0.8-5.0 µm for the first time, at the high resolution of ~20 nm.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

13/n IIRS second objective: Complete characterization of water/hydroxyl feature near 3.0 µm for the first time at high spatial (~80 m) and spectral (~20 nm) resolutions.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

14/n One more from IIRS: will also measure solar radiation reflected off the Moon's surface in 256 contiguous spectral bands from 100 km lunar orbit.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

Chandrayaan 1 vs Chandrayaan 2

15/n Dual-frequency (L and S) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) will provide enhanced capabilities compared to Chandrayaan 1's S-band miniSAR in areas such as: L-band for greater depth of penetration (About 5m — twice that of S-band).

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

16/n SAR: Circular and full polarimetry — with a range of resolution options (2-75 m) and incident angles (9°-35°) — for understanding scattering properties of permanently shadowed regions.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

Quantitative estimation of water-ice in the polar regions

17/n SAR: The main scientific objectives of this payload are: High-resolution lunar mapping in the polar regions. Quantitative estimation of water-ice in the polar regions. Estimation of regolith thickness and its distribution.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

CHACE experiment

18/n Chandrayyan Atmospheric compositional explorer 2 (CHACE 2) will continue the CHACE experiment carried out by Chandrayaan 1.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

19/n CHACE 2 is a Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (QMA) capable of scanning the lunar neutral exosphere in the mass range of 1 to 300 amu with the mass resolution of ~0.5 amu.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

Evolution of electron density in the Lunar ionosphere

21/n Dual Frequency Radio Science Experiment (DFRS) To study the temporal evolution of electron density in the Lunar ionosphere.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

22/n DFRS: Two coherent signals at X (8496 MHz), and S (2240 MHz) band are transmitted simultaneously from satellite, and received at ground-based deep station network receivers.

— Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India (@PrinSciAdvGoI) September 7, 2019

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