Chandrayaan-2 GSLV MkIII - March 25 to mid April 2019

[Blackstar]

I am writing an article about this and am trying to get it right.

Is the Indian orbiter and lander scheduled for Luna Resource, now in 2017? Is India involved in Luna Glob in any way?

[GClark]

AIUI and drawing heavily from Anatoly Zak, the current plan is for Luna-Resurs to be an enlarged version of the Luna-Glob lander.  It will carry the ISRO rover and be launched on a Soyuz 2.1B-Fregat in 2017, assuming there are no problems with the Luna-Glob lander in 2015 (or so).

I don't recall any involvement by ISRO in the Luna-Glob lander or orbiter.

Chandrayaan 2 can be launched whenever ISRO feels like it.  IIRC ISRO have said they want two successful launches of the GSLV Mk.2 first, so 2014 sometime?

Feel free to correct me here...

[antriksh]

Chandrayaan-2: India to go it alone

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/chandrayaan2-india-to-go-it-alone/article4329844.ece

following the failure in December 2011 of Roskosmos’ Phobos-Grunt mission, there was a delay in the construction of the Russian lander. Due to this, as well as financial problems, the Russian agency apparently expressed its inability provide the lander to meet even the revised time frame of 2015 for the Chandrayaan-2 launch.

Dr. Murty stated that the cancellation of the Russian lander also meant that mission profile had to be marginally changed. The design of the indigenous lander and the preliminary configuration study was completed by the Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, he said.

Chandrayaan-2 will have five primary payloads on the orbiter. In addition, the rover too will carry two additional instruments. Chandrayaan-2 will be launched by a GSLV powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine.

[Blackstar]

Thank you. That's the kind of information I was looking for.

[sanman]

Well, waitasec - here's something else:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-to-go-solo-on-second-lunar-mission/articleshow/18127272.cms

AHMEDABAD: India has decided on its second journey to the moon—Chandrayaan-2—without Russian participation. The tentative date for lift-off is 2015 from the Sriharikota facility. This was announced by space scientist S V S Murty of the Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory's (PRL) planetary exploration group during a conference on Monday.

The original mission envisaged the nearly Rs 425-crore Chandrayaan-2 having an indigenous rocket and a rover with a Russian lander. But Murty said, "The Russian lander is being replaced by an indigenous lunar lander." The decision comes after the failure of a Russian space mission, Phobos-Grunt in January 2012, which was supposed to test the lander.

Murthy said that the replacement of the Russian lander with an indigenous one would call for a change in the mission profile as well. The lander is being designed and developed by the Space Applications Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad. Its preliminary configuration study has been completed.

The orbiter will have five payloads, while the six-wheeled rover has two. The orbiter will operate from an altitude of 200 km above the moon's surface. "Chandrayaan-2 will carry out an intensive investigation of a localized area of the moon having high scientific value," he said.

The rocket will be the three-stage Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine. All the payloads of Chandrayaan-2 are indigenous in contrast to Chandrayaan-1 which had six foreign payloads and five from India.

Now this seems quite interesting. I'd really like to see what an Indian-designed lunar lander would look like. And could this become the basis for any concept designs for a larger manned lander?

[Blackstar]

I get a dead link.

[sanman]

Okay, try this one instead:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-to-go-solo-on-second-lunar-mission/articleshow/18124826.cms


Here's also another link from Nature.com:

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/01/india-may-go-to-the-moon-alone.html

Designing and building the lander and the rover will surely take time, admits Goswami. Moreover, ISRO has yet to certify the rocket to be used in this mission, which is expected to make its first test flight next month after two successive failures in 2010. The vehicle must make at least two successful flights before it can be trusted for launching Chandrayaan-2, says Goswami.

Hey Antriksh, any way you can get a pic of the ISRO lander design? I'd really love to know what it looks like.

[Kryten]

 While trying to find a working link for that article, I found this;

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/chandrayaan-2-will-be-indo-russia-mission-isro-lab-director/articleshow/18136814.cms

AHMEDABAD: India's second lunar mission will be undertaken with Russian participation though it has got delayed, a top official of an ISRO lab said today amidst reports that 'Chandrayaan 2' will be a solo mission.

Chandrayaan 2, an Indo-Russian joint project, is going ahead but it has got delayed, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Director J N Goswami said here.

Ahmedabad-based PRL is part of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

"The Indo-Russian mission is going ahead. The project has got delayed. Currently, we are whole-heartedly working for the Mars project scheduled for November. The moon mission, for the time being, has got delayed," Goswami told PTI.

Roskomos, Russia's space agency, and ISRO had signed an agreement on November 12, 2007. Under the pact, Roskomos had assumed the vital responsibility of providing both the orbiter and the rover, while its Indian counterpart was to design and build the lander for the ambitious mission.

"The failure of Roskosmos Phobos-Grunt mission (in December 2011) has, for the time-being, delayed the moon mission," he said, adding the construction of lander for the combined mission has been delayed.

Chandrayaan 2 will have five primary payloads on the orbiter, two of which will be improvements on instruments that were onboard Chandrayaan 1, launched in October, 2008.

Also, the rover will carry two additional instruments. Chandrayaan 2, originally scheduled in 2015, will be launched by a GSLV-powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine.

Reports had appeared in a section of media quoting a scientist of PRL S V S Murty as saying India will go it alone in the Chandrayaan 2 mission. Despite repeated efforts, he was not available for comments on the issue.

PRL is involved in designing indigenous payloads for Chandrayaan 2.

So it looks like there's some indecision at ISRO with regards to this.

[antriksh]

Okay, try this one instead:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-to-go-solo-on-second-lunar-mission/articleshow/18124826.cms


Here's also another link from Nature.com:

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/01/india-may-go-to-the-moon-alone.html

Designing and building the lander and the rover will surely take time, admits Goswami. Moreover, ISRO has yet to certify the rocket to be used in this mission, which is expected to make its first test flight next month after two successive failures in 2010. The vehicle must make at least two successful flights before it can be trusted for launching Chandrayaan-2, says Goswami.

Hey Antriksh, any way you can get a pic of the ISRO lander design? I'd really love to know what it looks like.

We will have to wait for that as the design work on lunar soft lander just started in 2012. I thought that it was for future missions and not meant for Chandrayaan-2, but it seems they are considering chandrayaan-2 also.

[Blackstar]

Hey Antriksh, any way you can get a pic of the ISRO lander design? I'd really love to know what it looks like.

Probably a little too early for that. But try to imagine something with legs...

[Stan Black]

Hey Antriksh, any way you can get a pic of the ISRO lander design? I'd really love to know what it looks like.

Probably a little too early for that. But try to imagine something with legs...

Not airbags then?

[Blackstar]

Not airbags then?

Would you want to use airbags in such low gravity?

[antriksh]

Hey Antriksh, any way you can get a pic of the ISRO lander design? I'd really love to know what it looks like.

Probably a little too early for that. But try to imagine something with legs...

Not airbags then?

For Indian lander, it would be a powered decent using one of the following strategies that are under study

Soft landing on Moon
1) by initiating the powered braking from the lunar parking orbit itself and directly landing.
2) by initiating powered braking from an intermediate orbit and directly landing.
3) by splitting the powered braking into two phases:
(a) powered horizontal braking phase that ends at a low altitude with a small vertical velocity and a zero horizontal velocity (b) a vertical descent phase ensuring the required touchdown velocity.

[GClark]

Not airbags then?

Would you want to use airbags in such low gravity?

Surely you're not forgetting the E-6 landers?

[seshagirib]

Hey Antriksh, any way you can get a pic of the ISRO lander design? I'd really love to know what it looks like.

Probably a little too early for that. But try to imagine something with legs...

Not airbags then?

For Indian lander, it would be a powered decent using one of the following strategies that are under study

Soft landing on Moon
1) by initiating the powered braking from the lunar parking orbit itself and directly landing.
2) by initiating powered braking from an intermediate orbit and directly landing.
3) by splitting the powered braking into two phases:
(a) powered horizontal braking phase that ends at a low altitude with a small vertical velocity and a zero horizontal velocity (b) a vertical descent phase ensuring the required touchdown velocity.

Is it possible to soft land direct on the moon ( without entering any lunar orbit) ?

[plutogno]

Is it possible to soft land direct on the moon ( without entering any lunar orbit) ?

yes. the early Soviet probes as well as the Surveyors did so

[antriksh]

Hey Antriksh, any way you can get a pic of the ISRO lander design? I'd really love to know what it looks like.

Probably a little too early for that. But try to imagine something with legs...

Not airbags then?

For Indian lander, it would be a powered decent using one of the following strategies that are under study

Soft landing on Moon
1) by initiating the powered braking from the lunar parking orbit itself and directly landing.
2) by initiating powered braking from an intermediate orbit and directly landing.
3) by splitting the powered braking into two phases:
(a) powered horizontal braking phase that ends at a low altitude with a small vertical velocity and a zero horizontal velocity (b) a vertical descent phase ensuring the required touchdown velocity.

Is it possible to soft land direct on the moon ( without entering any lunar orbit) ?

Yes its called direct descent and involves midcourse correction in the trans lunar trajectory to follow a direct impact trajectory.

[seshagirib]

^ Then, why is "direct descent" not an option, under consideration for the Indian Mission?

[seshagirib]

Not airbags then?

Would you want to use airbags in such low gravity?

Did not follow, what is the worry here? Bounce back into space?

[antriksh]

^ Then, why is "direct descent" not an option, under consideration for the Indian Mission?

because mission involves orbiter and lander.