: New Delhi, Jan 28: Scientists, who were reluctant to send the Impactor Probe onboard Chandrayaan-I because it was taking up too much of the allowable payload weight, have been proved wrong after it sent back never-seen-before 5 metre resolution Moon images taken from a height of only six km.
The Moon Impactor Probe (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.
Some scientists were, however, reluctant to include the 28-kg MIP as part of the payload and favoured carrying a few more instruments instead, said senior scientist Narendra Bhandari, who has been involved with Chandrayaan-I since its inception. “The MIP, which would crash on the lunar surface, alone weighed 28 kg when the 10 other instruments had a total weight of only 50 kg,” Bhandari said, adding “Any given day, scientists would have preferred carrying more diverse experiments instead of one taking up the lion’s share of the allowable payload weight.” But once the MIP began to beam back to earth breathtaking pictures as it plunged towards the moon, scientists were gladdened as they had never before seen photographs of the moon clicked from an altitude of only six km, Bhandari said. The MIP, which landed very close to the South Pole near Shackleton crater, not only marked India’s physical presence on the lunar surface but also helped check out some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions, he said. (PTI)
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