India will soon attempt to soft land its lander and rover on the surface of the moon as part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission and the scientific experiments that ISRO wants to carry out have got significant attention. In an exclusive interview with News18, the space agency’s UR Rao Satellite Centre director Dr Sankaran decodes why India is interested in the composition of the Lunar surface and if the lunar surface can become a pit stop for the country to launch space missions in the future:
EDITED EXCERPTS:
It’s a great day for India’s space journey. Can you elaborate on the six payloads that are onboard the spacecraft and the exciting experiments planned?
See, the interest about the moon is to know about it, the materials available and their properties. The interest comes from two reasons. One is there is always a speculation that there are some valuable chemicals and minerals available on moon and whether they are exploitable. The second reason is the entire world is looking at making moon the base for future interplanetary exploration so whether it is possible to manufacture some of the like propellants and equipment on the surface of moon itself is one of the ideas. So, the interest in finding out the chemical properties of lunar soil is whether these can be converted into propellants and other materials. The whole world is looking at these problems only from these two points of views.
So, I believe the seismic activity on lunar surface is probably being studied for the same reason?
Seismic activities are suspected on the lunar surface though there are no recorded or measured data available about the same. The seismic activity tells about the geology of the Earth. There is some understanding about the core of the moon and its rock structure. If there is a moonquake, it will give a completely different idea about the structure of the moon. That is why there is an interest in finding out even about very mild tremors on the moon.
Dr Sankaran, Chandrayaan-1 lasted more than what it was designed for. In this mission, the initial idea is that it will last 14 Earth days that is one moon day. But is there a possibility that this will go beyond that? When the Sun actually comes back to the same landing area?
It is a lottery because we have made certain design choices so that it gives a better chance for the instruments to survive. But the temperature it is going to experience during this lunar night is less than minus 150 degree centigrade. So, it is highly unlikely everything will survive but we are keeping our fingers crossed. We made certain design choices which will allow this equipment to survive. We are hoping it may survive but we cannot say anything now.
What is one big challenge in the next 3-4 weeks till August 23 when you’re hoping that the soft landing will happen?
The challenge is to not make any mistakes. We know what is to be done, we know how it is to be done and have done so many simulations and testing only to make sure we don’t make a mistake.
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