UPSC Prelims 2024 Special: Revision Checklist for important Space Missions

Chandrayaan-3

— The Chandrayaan-3 mission, which took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) in Sriharikota is India’s third lunar mission and second attempt to make a soft landing on the surface of the Moon.

— According to ISRO, the mission’s three objectives were to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, to demonstrate a Rover roving on the Moon and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.

— The landing site is near the south pole of the moon at 70 degrees latitude.

— The polar regions of the Moon are distinct, as they are completely dark without sunlight, and temperatures can drop below 230 degrees Celsius, making equipment operation challenging. As a result, the Moon’s polar regions have remained untouched.

— Notably, Chandrayaan-2 intended to land in this region in 2019, but it was unable to achieve a smooth landing and lost contact after impacting the surface.

Here’s how the Chandrayaan-3 reached the lunar orbit and how it plans to descend to the Moon’s surface.

Payloads of Chandrayaan-3

— There are four scientific payloads on the lander to study lunar quakes, thermal properties of the lunar surface, changes in the plasma near the surface, and a passive experiment to help accurately measure the distance between Earth and the Moon.

— There are two payloads on the Rover, designed to study the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface and to determine the composition of elements such as magnesium, aluminium and iron in the lunar soil and rocks.

Do you know?

What is a soft landing?

— It means landing at a gentle, controlled speed to not sustain damage to a spacecraft.

What are the different kinds of moon missions that have been launched so far?

— Flybys are the missions in which the spacecraft passes near the Moon but does not get into an orbit around it.

— Orbiters are spacecraft designed to get into a lunar orbit and carry out prolonged studies of the Moon’s surface and atmosphere. India’s Chandrayaan-1 was an Orbiter. These are the most common way to study a planetary body. Chandrayaan-2 mission also consisted of an orbiter, which is still operational and orbiting the Moon at an altitude of around 100 km.

— Impact missions are an extension of Orbiter missions. While the main spacecraft keeps going around the Moon, one or more instruments on board make an uncontrolled landing on the lunar surface.

— Landers involve the soft landing of the spacecraft on the Moon. These are more complicated than the Orbiter missions. The first landing on the moon was accomplished on January 31, 1966, by the Luna 9 spacecraft of the then USSR.

Lunar Missions of other countries

Luna-25

— The Russian spacecraft was slated to reach the moon a few days before India’s Chandrayaan-3. The spacecraft crashed because the engine failed to shut off in time and ran for longer than it should have.

— Luna-25 was modern Russia’s first attempt to land a spacecraft on moon, 47 years after Luna-24, launched by the then Soviet Union had made a successful landing.

SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon)

— SLIM’s landing made Japan just the fifth country in the world to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

— Because its solar panels were not in an optimal location to harvest sunlight, SLIM had already met its primary mission objectives of demonstrating a soft landing, collecting science data, and deploying two miniature rovers.

Intuitive Machines 1 (Odysseus)

— The mission objective of Intuitive Machines 1 (IM-1, TO2-IM) was to land a NOVA-C lander named Odysseus in crater Malapert A near the Moon’s south pole.

— The mission’s scientific objectives included investigations into plume-surface interactions, radio astronomy, and space weather interactions with the lunar surface.

LUPEX Mission (ISRO and JAXA)

— LUPEX is planned to investigate the abundance of water in the polar regions, and explore the possibilities of locating a long-term station in these areas.

— LUPEX, or Lunar Polar Exploration, is slated for 2024-25.

— The Japanese agency is expected to donate the launch vehicle and rover to the LUPEX project, while ISRO will provide the lander.

Solar Mission

Aditya L1

— It was launched with the mission of observing and helping us better understand the Sun.

— Aditya-L1 is placed outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, and its instruments can study ultraviolet radiation from the corona, allowing scientists to better understand how it works.

— The mission contributed to the continuous monitoring of the Solar atmosphere and corona in order to detect solar eruptions and research the characteristics of charged particles in the Solar wind.

— Aditya-L1 consists of seven instruments to observe all radiation and charged particles. Its location is 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth, towards the Sun.

Payloads of Aditya L1

— Aditya includes seven scientific payloads, including the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS), and High-Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS), which are designed to directly follow the Sun. Other in-situ (on-site) measurement devices include the Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX), the Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA), and advanced triaxial high resolution digital magnetometers.

Do you know?

What is Lagrangian point?

— L1 denotes the first Lagrangian point; there are five such places, L1 through L5. In the nineteenth century, the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler and the Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange made theoretical discoveries about these locations. We are concerned with points L1 and L2 since they are relevant to space missions.

— L1 is the point between Earth and the Sun where the gravitational and centrifugal forces on a spacecraft cancel out.

Other important space missions of ISRO

NVS-01

— The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) mission launched the NVS-01 navigation satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.

— NVS-01 is the first of several second-generation satellites planned for Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) services. The NVS family of satellites will support and improve the NavIC with new functionalities.

X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat)

— It is India’s first dedicated polarimetry mission, which will investigate the behaviour of intense astronomical X-ray sources in harsh conditions.

— The spacecraft will carry two research payloads in a low Earth orbit.

(i) POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays): It will measure the polarimetry parameters (degree and angle of polarisation) of astronomical photons with medium X-ray energies ranging from 8 to 30 keV.

(ii) XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing): This payload will provide spectroscopic data within the energy range of 0.8-15 keV.

INSAT-3DS

— The GSLV intends to launch the INSAT-3DS meteorological satellite into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

— INSAT-3DS Satellite is a follow-up mission to the Third Generation Meteorological Satellite in Geostationary Orbit.

— It is intended to improve meteorological observations and monitoring of land and ocean surfaces for weather forecasting and disaster warning.

Other important space missions from different countries

Boeing’s Starliner

— Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, carrying two NASA astronauts, launched by an Atlas V rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the International Space Station.

— Sunita Williams, an Indian-origin astronaut, and her colleague Butch Wilmore tested a unique capability of the spacecraft in orbit: manual piloting on the trip to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spaceship.

— Williams and Wilmore flew to space for the third time, making history as the first members to board Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for a 25-hour voyage to the International Space Station (ISS).

— Williams, 58, will pilot the flying test, with Wilmore, 61, serving as mission commander.

What is Starliner?

— Starliner is a largely reusable crew capsule also known as CST-100 (crew space transit). The capsule, which is 5 metres tall and 4.6 metres wide, is composed of two modules:

Crew module: It can accommodate seven people, but for missions to the International Space Station, it will be modified for four men and cargo. It can be utilised up to ten times and requires a six-month turnaround.

Service module: It is the powerhouse of the spacecraft — which supplies electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air, and water in space. This module is expandable.

— The main objective of the mission is to see how Starliner performs in space with a crew onboard. It is supposed to dock with the ISS — a day after the launch — for around 10 days before it returns to the Earth.

— During a far-field demonstration, they turned Starliner’s nose towards Earth, directing its communications antenna on the back of the Service Module towards the Tracking and Data Relay satellites. They then repositioned the Starliner so that its solar array aimed at the sun, demonstrating that they could charge the internal batteries if ever needed.

OSIRIS-REx (NASA)

— OSIRIS-REx is the first US mission to sample an asteroid. It returned to Earth in September 2023 to drop off debris from the asteroid Bennu.

— Samples carried by the OSIRIS-REx mission are essential because asteroids like Bennu can serve as “time capsules” for our solar system’s early history.

JUICE Mission (ESA)

— JUICE, or the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, will make multiple flybys past Jupiter’s moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa before going into orbit around Ganymede which will help scientists understand more about Jupiter and its system, with a focus on finding out whether Ganymede can host life.

Shenzhou-16 (China)

— China launched a spacecraft to transport three astronauts to its Tiangong space station. It marks the country’s fifth manned voyage to a fully operational space station since 2021.

Hakuto-R Moon lander (Japan)

— The lunar lander, manufactured by private Japanese space technology company Ispace, has returned another image of the Moon.

— The Hakuto-R lander was destined for the Atlas crater on the northeastern section of the Moon’s near side when it crashed in April this year.

CALIPSO Mission (NASA and CNES)

— The CALIPSO mission that analysed climate, weather, and air quality ended on August 1, 2023. The CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) mission recorded more than 10 billion LIDAR measurements and helped create thousands of scientific reports over its 17 years of operation.

— It was launched jointly by NASA and France’s CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) along with the cloud-profiling radar system on the CloudSat satellite.

Psyche Mission

— Psyche is only the 16th asteroid to ever have been discovered, according to Arizona State University. It was discovered by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis in 1852, who named it after the goddess of the soul in ancient Greek mythology.

— Astronomers are interested in the asteroid because it is thought to contain a lot of metal.

— The Psyche spacecraft will reach the asteroid by low-thrust solar-electric propulsion. On its way, it will take advantage of a Mars flyby and gravity assist. After landing at the asteroid, it will conduct scientific investigations from four staging orbits around it. Each orbit brings the spacecraft closer to the asteroid.

Post Read MCQs

QUESTION 1

With reference to the Chandrayaan-3, consider the following statements:

1. This mission makes the first attempt to make a soft landing on the surface of the Moon.

2. The landing site for the Chandrayaan-3 is near the south pole of the moon at 70 degrees latitude.

3. One of the main objectives is to study the thermal properties of the lunar surface

How many of the statements given above are correct?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(c) All three

(d) None

QUESTION 2

Consider the following statements:

1. Flybys are the missions in which the spacecraft passes near the Moon but does not get into an orbit around it.

2. Orbiters are spacecraft designed to get into a solar orbit.

3. Impact missions are an extension of flybys.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(c) All three

(d) None

QUESTION 3

Consider the following pairs:

(Lunar Missions)	(Country associated)
Luna-25	China
SLIM	Russia
Intuitive Machines	Canada

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(c) All three

(d) None

QUESTION 4

POLIX and XSPECT are the two payloads associated with:

(a) INSAT-3DS

(b) OSIRIS-REx

(c) JUICE Mission

(d) XPoSat Mission

QUESTION 5

Consider the following pairs:

(Space Mission)	(Associated Space Agency)
Hakuto-R	Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Shenzhou-16	Roscosmos
JUICE Mission	NASA
OSIRIS-REx	European Space Agency (ESA)

How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(c) Only three

(d) All four

Answers

1. (b)

2. (a)

3. (d)

4. (d)

5. (a)

(Other Sources: http://www.isro.gov.in, science.nasa.gov, http://www.esa.int)

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