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Chandrayaan‑1

Overview

Chandrayaan-1 was the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO's) first mission to the Moon, launched in October 2008 on board a Polar Satellite launch vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) launch site in India. On board were 11 instruments - including the Compact Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS), a low-energy X-ray Spectrometer. Together these instruments were designed to give a comprehensive view of the Moon in infrared, optical and X-ray wavelengths.

RAL Space involvement

The C1XS instrument was constructed at RAL Space, in collaboration with ISRO. The polar orbit of Chandrayaan-1 meant that C1XS could have mapped the entire lunar surface, including all the Apollo landing sites and areas previously seen by D-CIXS on SMART-1. The Apollo sites are very important because we have moon rock and soil samples from these sites which we can compare with our remote sensing observations.
Launch Date
October 2008
Mission End
August 2009
Focus
Planetary science and exploration
Partners
ISRO, SDSC

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