ISRO Marks First Anniversary of Chandrayaan 2, Mission Data Will Be Shared with Public in October

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today marks the first anniversary of its mission Chandrayaan 2. GSLV MkIII M1 launch vehicle had launched Chandrayaan 2 with three modules namely the Orbiter, Vikram lander and Pragyan rover on 22 July 2020. ISRO says that all eight payloads on the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, which was inserted into lunar orbit on 20 August 2019, are performing well.

Although Chandrayaan 2 did not go as planned due to the loss of Vikram lander minutes before its descent on the surface of the moon, the global mapping of lunar surface and polar coverage are being carried out as per the mission plan, says ISRO.

“Extensive data has been acquired from Chandrayaan-2 payloads and parameters are being derived for (i) presence of water-ice in the polar regions, (ii) X-ray based and Infrared spectroscopic mineral information and (iii) mid and high latitude presence of Argon-40, a condensable gas on the Moon which gets released internally by the radio-active decay of 40 K,” says a statement from the Indian Space Research Organisation.

While ISRO was planning on sharing the findings from Chandrayaan 2 science experiments at the Annual Lunar Planetary Science Conference in March 2020, it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, public release of the scientific data from Chandrayaan 2 for global use will begin in October 2020, wherein details for accessing the data will be provided.

Earlier this year, the data accessed by the Chandrayaan 2 payload teams was shared and discussed with the Thematic Lunar Science working group members from non-ISRO institutions at the fourth Lunar science meet and Chandrayaan 2 Data Analysis Workshop. The interaction was held at the Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC), Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) campus, Byalalu between 6 and 7 January 2020.

Dr K Sivan, ISRO Chairman, has also confirmed the plans to launch Chandrayaan 3. Dr Sivan said that the Chandrayaan 3 mission to the moon, comprising a lander and a rover is approved by the Government and activities for its realisation are in progress.