'India will launch lunar satellite within a year'

Nagpur, Aug 3: India will launch it's moon satellite 'Chandrayan' within a year, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair said here today.

Speaking to mediapersons Dr Nair said the satellite, weighing about 560 kg, would be launched by the middle of next year and placed in the orbit 100 km from the moon.

''The satellite would stay in orbit for two years and carry out a thorough study of the entire surface of the moon. The studies would include terrain mapping and spectrometric study of the minerals.

This would be the first study to cover the entire lunar surface for the intended resolution,'' he explained.

Dr Nair said the satellite would carry 12 instruments, including 6 from India, 4 from Europe and 2 from the US.

''The construction of the satellite has already started at Bangalore and would be ready by the year end. It would be launched with India's indigenous launch vehicle PSLV,'' the ISRO chief said.

Replying to questions, Dr Nair said India's manned mission to the moon was still ''a very long way away''.

''We will start by putting a man in a capsule in space in 2015. A manned mission to moon will come only beyond 2020,'' he predicted.

India would be in a position to send a satellite to Mars in six or seven years' time. The mission will be scientifically very interesting, Dr Nair said.

Replying to another question, Dr Nair said a detailed study was necessary to determine whether the 'Ram Setu' (Adam's Bridge), the ancient structure between India and Sri Lanka was manmade or not. ''Satellite images showed the existence of an almost continuous structure just below the surface of the sea, sometimes barely a few feet, between the two countries. However, the composition of the structure is not known. A thorough investigation will be necessary to find out what it is made of,'' he opined. The structure is at the centre of a controversy as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is opposing its proposed demolition for the Sethusamudram Canal Project (SSCP), which envisages linking Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar by making a shipping canal through Rameshwaram. The canal will enable ships to save 16 hours of voyage of 400 nautical miles around Sri Lanka.

Earlier, Dr Nair inaugurated a new gallery on the theme 'Information and Communication Technology' at the Raman Science Centre here, which is a constituent unit of the National Council of Science Museums under the Union Ministry of Culture.

Speaking after inaugurating the new exhibit, Dr Nair called for research to develop a cost-effective and more efficient technology to tap solar energy. A solar power station using the existing technology would be 30 to 40 times costlier than a conventional one, he pointed out. The technology must be made more efficient so that the output for a given investment was higher. Efforts must also be made to find out a way to store solar energy so that it could be used when there was no sunshine, he said.

''Can solar energy be used to disassociate the hydrogen in water? If it can be done, it will give us a cheap method of producing hydrogen, which is an environment-friendly automobile fuel,'' Dr Nair added.

UNI