Chandrayaan-1: An Introduction #1

Behind the name
Chandrayaan is India's first mission to Moon.Chandrayaan-1 was first named somayaan. But later our former Prime Minister, A.B Vajpai named it Chandrayaan. In sanskrit it means "Moon traveller", Chandra being Moon and Yaana being journey. Somayaan also means journey to moon, where Soman is sanskrit for moon.
To know more click on this link Chandrayaan-1: An Introduction #2
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Chandrayaan - 1: An Introduction #2

Chandrayaan-1 was launched to GTO by PSLV C-11 rocket on 22nd October 2008 from Sathish Dhawan space center, Sriharikkotta in Nellore district of Andrapradesh. It had a weight of 316 tonnes and a height of 44.4meters.The payload(chandrayaan-1) had about 1380kg of weight, which was reduced to 675kg in the lunar orbit. After the separation of the impactor, the mass was 523kg.

When the spacecraft was launched to the GTO/EPO, the mass was only 1050kg. It used up the fuel and reached the lunar orbit when only 83kg of the fuel remained. In total there was 526kf of fuel and the dry mass of spacecraft was 440kg. It had to travel an accurate distance of 384403 km to reach the moon. Chandrayaan-1 is a cube shaped spacecraft having a length of 1.5m. It is equipped with 11 scientific instruments to accomplish its several tasks. The three-axis stabilization is provided to the spacecraft using two star sensors(suffered damage from solar radiations), two gyroscopes and four reaction wheels. The mission is now called off because the ground station is not receiving signals due to the malfunction of computers on board.
Tomorrow you can read more information on Chandrayaan-1's interiors...