South Korea’s first lunar orbiter KPLO will also help detect vast polar water ice deposits using its ultrasensitive camera. There’s also India’s own Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which uses its advanced radar to better map and quantify water ice on the Moon’s poles. This includes NASA’s Artemis plans to return humans to the Moon and use resources like water to sustain future habitats as well as the flurry of upcoming robotic missions seeking the exact nature, state, and amount of lunar water.
What was Chandrayaan-1’s impact on lunar exploration?Ĭhandrayaan-1’s discovery of lunar water helped revitalize global interest in exploring our Moon. It was M3 that confirmed our Moon hosts water once and for all, and found the majority of it to be concentrated on the poles. But Chandrayaan-1 carried with it another instrument, NASA’s Moon Mineralogical Mapper (M3), that could differentiate between ice, liquid water, and water vapor based on how the lunar surface reflected and absorbed infrared light. But just like with previous efforts such as NASA’s Clementine Moon-mapping orbiter, the mini-SAR data on its own wasn’t bulletproof. Their Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini-SAR) found the patterns of reflected signals from more than 40 polar craters to be consistent with water ice. NASA pitched and got to fly two of its water-hunting instruments on Chandrayaan-1. Space agencies globally were keen to confirm water’s presence, hopefully in relatively large amounts, as that would have implications for future human settlements as well as the Moon’s origin. How did Chandrayaan-1 discover water on the Moon?įinding water on the Moon was a primary scientific objective when ISRO was planning Chandrayaan-1. In all, Chandrayaan-1 was a logical extension of ISRO’s capabilities. Initial calculations showed that India’s PSLV rocket could provide an Earth-bound orbit beyond which the fuel on the spacecraft could be used to go to the Moon and perform orbital capture. The basic infrastructure was ready and the only change required was adapting a geostationary satellite for the Moon. The idea of a Moon orbiter was floated around and was received positively by everyone.Īt the time, ISRO already had satellites designed for geostationary orbits, which could carry plenty of fuel on board. This planted the seed for undertaking more ambitious missions. During his time as chair of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) from 1994 to 2003, Kasturirangan wanted ISRO to play a small role in India’s ambition to become a superpower. The Mission Director of Chandrayaan-1, Srinivasa Hegde, recalls the mission’s inception in an interview as being thanks to Dr.
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