RS hails Chandrayan launch, applauds Indian scientists

New Delhi, Oct 22 (UNI) Amid thumping of desks, the Rajya Sabha today congratulated the Chairman and scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the successful launch of Chandrayan-I, India's first unmanned scientific mission to the moon.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in Tokyo on a five-day visit to Japan and China, in a statement also congratulated the ISRO scientists over the achievement saying they had done the country proud.

Making a suo motu statement in the House, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Prithviraj Chavan said the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) had successfully launched the Chandrayan spacecraft which was the 14th flight in the PSLV series.

The launch vehicle systems had performed satisfactorily, he said while informing the House about the successful launch amid thumping of desks by the members.

Mr Chavan said the main scientific objective of Chandrayan-I mission was to orbit around the moon and carry out the high-resolution remote sensing for preparing a three-dimensional atlas of the moon and carrying out chemical and minerological mapping of the lunar surface.

The spacecraft has 11 scientific instruments from India and the universities and labs of the European Space Agency, the US and Bulgaria.

He said Chandrayan-I had been placed in an eliptical intermediate orbit of 255 X 22,860 Km around the earth. In the coming days, the spacecraft would be manoeuvred using its own on-board propulsion system to attain an orbit around the moon which is nearly 400,000 km away from the earth.

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