NARL provided weather forecast for Chandrayaan's launch

Tirupati, Oct 23 (UNI) Weather change due to withdrawal of South West Monsoon and setting-in of North-east monsoon and wind-related data proved a critical input for the launch of Chandrayaan-I, country's first moon mission.

According to National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) located at Gadanki near here, Director A Jayaraman said, its laboratory conducts experiments for providing wind information in support of various satellite launch vehicle programmes.

The 1,400 kg spacecraft was launched at 0622 hrs yesterday from Sriharikota.

A series of high-resolution wind measurements were carried out every hour during the launch campaign mode and data was communicated to SDSC while fourteen such campaigns were carried out by NARL in coordination with SDSC.

During the launch, NARL played a crucial role in studying and predicting changes in the atmosphere and winds , Mr Jayaraman said.

NARL in its round-the-clock service, provided data on atmosphere and trajectory-related information directly to SDSC every half-an-hour along with the SHAR's meteorology team, he added.

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