India’s quest for the moon, by the name of “Chandrayaan II,” planned for 2013-14, may be delayed. Indicating this at a news conference organised after the successful launch of “PSLV-C21”, the 100th mission of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), ISRO chief Dr K Radhakrishnan said that while ISRO was keen on making the second “moon mission” a reality as scheduled, its Russian partner had other ideas. Underscoring that “Chandrayaan-II” was an Indo-Russian joint project, he said while the satellite and its rover were built by India, the “Lander module” has to come from Russia. “From our side, things are in very good shape, but in the light of certain recent events vis-à-vis developments in China, Russia is reviewing various aspects of its space programme, including the ‘Lander Model’,” Dr Radhakrishnan said, adding that the exact date of availability of the Lander is not certain he further said “Mars orbiter mission” poses several challenges, it is very much a part of the Plan. While the earliest opportunity for the Mars mission is October-November 2013, when the planet would be closest to the Earth, the next opportunities will be in 2016 and 2018, he said. “Our objective is to get an elliptical orbit for the Mars Orbiter; we can build the spacecraft (an extended PSLV version) and also determine the orbit he said the Cabinet had approved only Rs150 crore for pre-project exercises to explore future growth potential areas in space exploration. He said a “multi-object tracking radar” will be established at Sriharikota in the next three years to protect the ISRO-launched satellites from the falling space debris. Another major project sanctioned for the Satish Dhawan Space Centre is constructing a second vehicle assembly building to “augment our launches”.
Source: Deccan Herald
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