MIP makes a perfect journey to moon's surface

Bangalore, Nov 14 (UNI) India's first attempt to send a probe to the moon's surface was successfully achieved today with the perfect placement of the Moon Impact Probe (MIP), ejected with precision by the unmanned moon mission Chandrayaan-1.

MIP took pictures and data along its 25 minute journey after separating from the spacecraft. All the data had been captured by the spacecraft and it would be decimated at the ISTRAC in the city.

Finally, the probe had a hard landing on the lunar surface that ended its journey.

The 25-minute journey began with the separation at 20:06 hrs IST.

This was followed by a series of automatic operations with the firing of spin up rockets after achieving a safe distance of separation from Chandrayaan-1.

Later, the probe slowed down with the firing of its retro rocket and started its rapid descent towards the moon's surface.

Information from the its instruments was radioed to Chandrayaan-1 which recorded the data on its onboard memory for later readout, an ISRO release said here tonight.

With MIP's successful impact, the test and deployment of the remaining eight payloads of the spacecraft would be done in the coming few days.

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