India in orbit

What do you call an Indian astronaut? It’s not a question that has ever needed much attention outside the realm of idle speculation, but think about it for a minute. Astronauts are American, of course. Cosmonauts are Russian and we’ve recently added Taikonauts - Chinese spacemen - to the list of star travellers. But with India’s space programme hitting the headlines with the staggering discovery of water on the moon, it’s soon likely to be time for a new category.

The Chandrayaan moon mission was the first foray into planetary science by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Launching late last year, it carried an orbiter and impacter probe -based on Indian-developed and produced technology - atop a similarly home-built rocket launched from Indian territory.

Chandrayaan (the name means moon vehicle in Sanskrit) also carried instruments from other organisations, including ESA, NASA and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

The mission met with mixed success. It was intended to last for two years but was terminated after 10 months after communication with the spacecraft was lost. ISRO’s then chairman, Madhavan Nair, said that power supplies for the craft’s computer systems had been damaged by very high radiation levels; a problem that hadn’t been anticipated. ‘We have learned some valuable lessons and we have to look for devices that are less susceptible to radiation in future,’ he said.