By M.M.K. Sheela 

It’s a confirmed discovery now! Water on the Moon exists and it’s India who’s done the world proud. After nearly five decades of lunar explorations by Western nations, it was India’s Chandrayaan ( this Sanskrit word means Moon Craft) that got the scientific community of the world go gaga over the ISRO — Indian Space Research Organisation, feat.

“This is a massively impressive accomplishment,” Martin Barstow, a leading British astronomer and secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) said. “I have nothing but praise for the Indian space programme — it is excellent. The discovery (of water on moon) is significant not only for reasons of science, but also for the sheer practical reason of returning to moon exploration,” said Barstow, who is pro-vice chancellor and professor of astrophysics and space science at the University of Leicester.

The Moon has been the subject of close investigation from the beginning of space exploration half a century ago making it the first celestial body where Neil Armstrong had landed way back in 1969. Early explorations projected the Moon as a dry, rocky planet with no atmosphere of gases and water vapours that surround the Earth and many other celestial bodies.

Increasing doubt

Yet, this consensus came under increasing doubt, starting with the 1994 Clemenstine mission followed by the Cassini fly by in 1999 and the Lunar Reconnaissance Observer in 2008. Now Chandrayaan’s observations have settled the issue finally.

Says S.M Chitre, well known astrophysicist, ‘The real significance of Chandrayaan is that it surveyed the entire Moon surface unlike NASA’s Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972 which barely covered 25% of total area and hence could not find water on Moon’.

Agrees Carle Pieters, a geologist at Brown University studied Chandrayaan’s data. “If it weren’t for them (ISRO), we wouldn’t have been able to make the long over due discovery.”

In that sense the Indian mission remained true to the Rigvedic hymn ‘O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect. You shine us through the right path’. (Rig Veda Part-1/91/1, about 2000BC)

ISRO developed payload (scientific instrument) the Hyper-Spectral Imager (HySI) on board Chandrayaan-1, provided inputs towards detecting water on the lunar surface. A combination of data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper or M3 (a joint project of NASA’s Propulsion Laboratory and Brown University) and HySI assisted the scientific team in establishing the presence and location of water molecules on the Moon.

HySI also helped in better understanding the moon’s mineral composition. In all Chandrayaan carried 11 payloads – five Indian, two American, three European and one from Bulgaria.

The Indian payloads included a camera that maps the topography of the moon to understand the lunar evolution process, a Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) that collects data for accurately determining the height of lunar surface features, a High Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX) designed to help identifying polar regions covered by thick water-ice deposits as well as regions of high Uranium and Thorium concentrations.

Analysis of data

Analysis of data sent by these instruments is in progress. It is voluminous data. For instance, according to M. Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan-1, there are over 70,000 images of lunar surface including pictures of mountains, craters and the permanently shadowed area of Moon’s polar region.

‘More dramatic findings are expected (from the analysis)’, ISRO chief Madhavan Nair said. These will be published in the international scientific journal in coming months for peer review.

It now turns out that the discovery of water traces on the Moon was more or less confirmed by Chandrayaan as far back as June. ISRO withheld the information, awaiting confirmation in an international scientific journal, Science, so as to leave no room for the skeptics about the discovery and its significance.

The happy news came as a relief to the Indian space scientists exactly a month after the furore in the media over Chandrayaan -1. The mission was dubbed a failure as it was  aborted, 14 months ahead of its normal life.  Madhavan Nair even then said that the mission had achieved its objectives and he was ‘100 per cent’ satisfied.

India has reason to smile as the water find coincided with a statement by its atomic scientists that the 1998 Pokharan II tests had given the country the capability to build fission and thermonuclear weapons with yields up to 200 kilo tonnes.  And Oceansat-2 launched from Sri Harikota in Andhra Pradesh on September 23 has begun taking pictures of Arabian Sea. This satellite and its on board camera, Ocean Colour Monitor (ICM) have a five-year life.

According to the ISRO scientists, Chandrayaan could not withstand the high level of radiation levels in the Moon’s environment and it had led to baking of its components and the early demise. ‘We will factor in the inputs while designing Chandrayaan -2’, Madhavan Nair said.

The next mission would send a lander-cum-rover to the moon. The rover would go about the Moon and pick up samples for analysis. Already preliminary design is completed. The launch is slated for the year 2012-13. Another Indian space odyssey would see thereafter an Indian astronaut landing on the Moon.

Such missions demand stringent technologies that are not available to India under the prevailing global dual-use technology denial regime. Cryogenic engine technology for  Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) that had hurled Chandrayaan -1 into outer space (on 22 October 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota 80 km north of Chennai), was denied.

Indian space scientists have overcome these limitations, progressed to launch communication and remote sensing satellites and helped the country enter the highly competitive satellite launch business.

Lower launch services

India today provides launch services which are at least 30 per cent lower than international costs. For instance, Chandrayaan -1 had cost Rs. 386 crore (US$ 80 million),  literally a fraction of a NASA bill for similar missions.

Chandrayaan-1 carried European, Bulgarian and NASA payloads free of cost. Riding with Oceansat-2 are six nanosats ranging from 2 to 8 kg, totaling 20 kg. Of them, four ‘Cubesats’ are from Switzerland and two ‘Rubin’ satellites are from Germany.  In April 2008, the PSLV achieved a record launch of ten satellites along with Cartosat-2A, an Indian IMS-1 and eight small foreign satellites.

A great stride from the modest beginnings made in Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) during early 1960s with the scientific investigation of upper atmosphere and ionosphere using small sounding rockets.

Why the big noise on Moon’s water? To carry a bottle of water to the moon costs $50,000. Just a ton of moon dust will yield a litre of water. Not bad when compared to the distance between Earth and Moon.

Also Chandrayaan’s discovery brings mankind closer to understanding how the cosmos works. And opens up the way to utilizing water on the Moon for making hydrogen needed for fuel and oxygen for subsistence of human life.  And that will lead to making the Moon a base for deeper probe of outer space. A rocket shot from Earth needs a speed of 11km per second to escape Earth’s gravity. Since Moon’s gravity is only one-sixth of Earth’s, launching rockets from there will be much easier. Buddha must be smiling!

(This first appeared on www.policyresearchgroup.org)