Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will build an extended version of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to carry the lunar rover and lander to the moon. Antrix Corp, the commercial arm of Isro signed the deal with Team Indus, an Antrix official confirmed the development. Team Indus declined comment.
Bengaluru: To win the international Google Lunar XPrize, a private team must build a rover, launch it to the moon, ensure it travels for at least 500 metres on the lunar surface and sends back hi-def images and videos all by December 2017. And the only team from India and still in the race is cutting it real close. TeamIndus, based out of Bengaluru, India, hopes to make it in the last week of the last month of the contest onboard a PSLV rocket. The detail was finalised earlier this month, historic because it is ISRO’s first sale of its launch vehicle to a private entity.
As per the agreement with ISRO, India’s premier space agency will carry the TeamIndus Spacecraft in a launch window that begins on December 28, 2017. ISRO’s PSLV will inject the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit of 880 km x 70,000 km around the earth, before the spacecraft undertakes a 21-day journey to soft-land in Mare Imbrium, a region in the north-western hemisphere of the moon. After landing in Mare Imbrium, the spacecraft will deploy all its payload including the TeamIndus Rover that will traverse 500 metres on the moon’s surface to accomplish its Google Lunar XPRIZE objectives.
Team Indus is certainly leaving their launch very late! Any slip and they won't make the Google deadline to "complete their mission by the end of 2017."
Yes. Not sure, why they are cutting it so fine. Could it be the non availability of launcher / launch pad, at an earlier date? maybe due to ISRO's prior launch commitments?
I would imagine it was Team Indus that asked for a date as late as possible, to give them time to have the spacecraft ready.
The XPRIZE verification of Team Hakuto’s launch agreement with India’s Team Indus boosts the number of approved competitors to five. That includes Team Indus as well as Moon Express, Synergy Moon and SpaceIL.
The team’s arrangement calls for sharing a ride to the moon with Team Indus, a competitor, on a PSLV launch vehicle to be sent up from Satish Dhawan Space Center in India around Dec. 28, 2017. That’s just a few days before the deadline for winning a share of the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE purse.
According to the latest reports, researchers in Kolkata have developed a payload that will share the ride with TeamIndus’s lunar rover and will land on the moon before the Republic Day of India.“The four-kg payload would be installed atop a lunar lander that a Bengaluru-based private company Team Indus is planning to send to the moon in December 2017. We have signed a deal with Team Indus. The country’s trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) engineered by India’s space agency ISRO would be carrying the lander and at least two rovers to the moon,” said Sandip Kumar Chakrabarti, Head of thade Indian Center for Space Physics in Kolkata.The instrument will study outer space environment of the lunar surface. The spacecraft has sophisticated X-ray sensors and small but powerful computer to analyse the data.
Later, Ayrault met Rahul Narayan, CEO of leading Indian “NewSpace” start-up, Axiom Research Labs.
As TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar mission, the French Space Agency will provide it with cameras, the release said.In the presence of the Minister, Narayan and Le Gall signed an agreement for equipping Axiom Research Lab’s lunar rover with two latest-generation CASPEX micro-cameras, developed by CNES in partnership with French firm 3DPlus.In joining forces with Team Indus on this first private mission to land a rover on the moon, CNES is sending French technology for the first time on lunar terrain, the release said.
As TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar mission
QuoteAs TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar missionIf they're still designing their rover, that doesn't leave much time to build and test it before launch.