158. India's Flag is on the Moon


India planted its flag firmly in the lunar soil on November 14, 2008, when its Chandrayan-1 orbiter fired its Moon Impact Probe onto Earth's natural satellite. The 75-lb. box-shaped MIP carried three instruments in its 25-minute flight down onto the Moon:
a video imaging system to take pictures of the Moon's surface as MIP approached a radar altimeter to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface a mass spectrometer to examine the extremely thin lunar atmosphere on the way down to the surface MIP was painted with India's green, white and saffron flag.


The lunar impact fired off celebrations in the Asian nation that hopes to raise its level of global influence. India is the second most populous country on Earth. India's first attempt to send a probe to the Moon's surface from its spacecraft orbiting the Moon was successful. Another lunar flight, probably with a soft landing and maybe even a small rover, will be launched in 2012, India announced.


Moon missions. India joined the U.S., Russia in the form of the former Soviet Union, the European Space Agency, Japan and China as the nations that have sent missions to the Moon. Today, the MIP probably is scattered across the Moon's Shackleton crater where the small probe smashed into the surface at more than 3,100 mph. Launch. India launched its first unmanned spacecraft to explore the Moon on October 22, 2008. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) calls the Moon flight project Chandrayan Pratham, which has been translated as First Journey to the Moon or Moonshot One in ancient Sanskrit.

The 1,157-lb. Chandrayan-1 was launched on a two-tyear mission on one of India's own Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) space rockets from the Sriharikota Space Center in southern India. The spacecraft circled Earth in a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) from where it flew on out into a polar orbit of the Moon some 60 miles above the lunar surface. The Chandrayan mission will send back to Earth high-resolution 3-D images of the moon's surface including the shadowy polar regions. It is searching for evidence of water or ice. It also will try to identify the chemical breakdown of some lunar rocks.