Next moon mission depends on Russia: ISRO chief

IANS/Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh

India’s second moon m

ission will depend on Russia’s decision after a failed inter-planetary mission with China, the chief of the country’s space agency said yesterday.“Russia is reviewing its inter-planetary missions after a failed joint mission with China. For Chandrayaan-2, Russia has to provide the lander,” Indian Space and Research Organisation chairman K Radhakrishnan said.“India will build the lunar orbiter and rover. Russia has said they would come to us with a decision after their review,” Radhakrishnan told reporters. The Chandrayaan-2 is planned for 2014 with India’s heavier rocket - Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).Radhakrishnan said the ISRO will ready the rocket and also the lunar orbiter and rover.There have bee reports that the Chandrayaan-2 project may get delayed to 2016; however, Radhakrishnan did not comment on it.The ISRO yesterday launched a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C21 carrying SPOT 6, a 712kg French earth observation satellite, and Proiteres, a 15kg Japanese micro satellite, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The space agency is now eagerly looking forward to its Mars mission planned for next year.Radhakrishnan denied India was in race with China for the Mars mission.“The Mars mission is a challenging one where we will develop new technologies.”He said the ISRO was studying the Mars mission since August 2010 and the federal cabinet had recently approved the project.He said the Mars mission was much more challenging than Chandrayaan-1 since it required taking the orbiter from the initial orbit into the Mars orbit as the distance to be covered was huge.Radhakrishnan said the other major challenge was tracking the satellite with deep space network.He said to realise the Mars mission next year, ISRO centres were working hard to perfect the GSLV rocket technology including the cryogenic engine technology.On the expansion of facilities at the space port here, Radhakrishnan said the ISRO had decided to set up a Multi Object Tracking Radar to track space debris and to time its rocket launches precisely.He said the ISRO was also planning to have a second vehicle (rocket) assembly building to facilitate increasing launch frequency.