India Approves Moon Mission: "India Approves Moon Mission
By K.S. Jayaraman
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 04:15 pm ET
19 August 2003


NEW DELHI, India -- India will send a spacecraft to the moon by 2008, prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said in his Independence Day address to the nation Aug. 15. The announcement has put an end to suspense over the fate of the roughly $100 million project of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) that was waiting for a formal sanction for over eight months.
The mission -- named Chandrayan-1 -- foresees placing a 1150 lb. (525 kilogram) satellite in a polar orbit 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the moon. The spacecraft will be launched by a modified version of India’s indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The lunar orbiter will be designed to operate for two years.
'This mission will provide a unique opportunity for frontier scientific research,' ISRO said in a statement. 'It is expected to be the forerunner of more ambitious planetary missions in the years to come, including landing robots on the moon and visits by Indian spacecraft to other planets in the solar system.'

snip

MORE AT SPACE.COM - LRK -


Much of the area around the Moon's south pole is within the South Pole-Aitken Basin (shown at left in blue on a lunar topography image), a giant impact crater 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) in diameter and 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) deep at its lowest point. Many smaller craters exist on the floor of this basin. Many of those craters never see sunlight and are thought to contain water ice. Credit: NASA/National Space Science Data Center