Article Posted on : - Jan 28, 2009

File image of the Moon Impact Probe with the tricolour on its sides. ISRO photo

NEW DELHI (PTI): Scientists were a divided lot over sending onboard Chandrayaan-I the Moon Impactor Probe which later produced excellent pictures of the earth's natural satellite.

The MIP which crashed onto the lunar surface on November 14 was included as one of the 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-I at the suggestion of the then President A P J Abdul Kalam.

However, some scientists were doubtful about including the 28-kg MIP as a part of the payload and favoured carrying some other experiments, said senior scientist Narendra Bhandari, who has been involved with Chandrayaan-I since its inception.

On the one hand there was one experiment that "would weigh 28 kg and crash on the lunar surface and on the other hand, we had 10 experiments with a total weight of 50 kg," he said.

Any given day, scientists would have preferred carrying more diverse experiments instead of one weighing 28 kg, Bhandari said.

But the breathtaking pictures beamed back on earth by MIP as it plunged towards the moon-gladdened scientists. Never before had they seen pictures of the moon clicked from an altitude of six kms.

The MIP, which landed very close to the South Pole near Shackleton crater, marked India's physical presence on the lunar surface. Bhandari was speaking to reporters after his book 'The Mysterious Moon & India's Chandrayaan Mission' was released by Thirumalachari Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology here last evening.

The Terrain Mapping Camera on board the MIP was switched on and the Deep Space Network on the outskirts of Bangalore received five metre resolution images of lunar surface.

Developed by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP was to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon.

Besides scientific exploration of the moon at close distance, the probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions