Slinted's link yields only a series of still shots which seem to be days and weeks old - no live streaming video that my super-slow ADSL connection can pick up on. The fault may lie at least partly with my location - Taiwan has not added any off-island broadband capacity for eight or nine years, since the boom went bust. We have super-fast domestic internet but for overseas traffic we are back to the days of dialup. Emily's link from the blog yields a still of a launch (I don't believe it is today's launch) and a notification that the live webcast should have already begun. So I'll be looking here for confirmation that the launch has taken place...

Alititude: 210 km
Velocity : 8km/Sec
Flight Time : 740sec

Going good so far

Seems everything went fine.
orbit is achieved.
Now, we have to wait for 5.5 days for Chandrayaan-I to arrive at Moon.

Thanks, Bhas! Keep the updates coming -- I've lost the feed here in Los Angeles, and am trying to get updates for my blog -- you will be my lifeline!

--Emily

Yes, thanks very much for the updates!

What's the mission design -- i.e., the spacecraft is now in low-Earth-orbit. It will probably need a circularization burn at apoapsis in half an hour. Will there be a trans-lunar-insertion burn to send it out of Earth's gravity later on sometime, or was it on a direct path to the moon initially? Thanks in advance to anyone who has an idea about this,

- Jason

AFP is reporting that official time of liftoff was 00:52 UTC.

Jason, you can probably find what you want to know here; report back and let us know!

--Emily

ISRO: 1st leg of chandrayaan has been perfect.
ISRO: Spacecraft to now circle the earth.
ISRO: India is the 6th nation to send "UnManned SpaceFlight" to Moon.
ISRO: Every parameter of the launch has proceeded successfully.
ISRO: We are certain that Chandrayaan-I will reach moon.

That's all for now.
I will check some time later to see if there is any other information available.

All the recent missions including this one have started in a geostationary transfer orbit (or geometrically similar - apogee at 25000 km or so). Then they increase the apogee with successive burns until it is at lunar distance and slip into a high lunar orbit, then gradually shrink that to a low lunar orbit. SMART-1 did something similar but very slowly with its ion engine. The 5.5 day trip to the Moon doesn't start at once, it's the last of those big orbits.

Phil

Ah. Here's a diagram of exactly what you're describing, Phil. Initial perigee is 250 km, apogee 23,000 km. Unfortunately it doesn't specify how long the whole journey is supposed to take. Does anybody know?

--Emily

I don't know what all the Cameras captured.
Very cloudy climate. Smoke at Lift-Off around rocket.

Achieving orbit etc using PSLV is normal since thats what would have happened in case of launch of any other satellite.
The real task would be orbital corrections and placing it in required orbit around Moon.
Then we have Deployment of all Instruments and Releasing Impactor.

as far as the information available to actual interesting stuff would start (data/photos etc) from Nov, 8th.

Yeah, it looked like it launched directly into a cloud, but I did catch a glimpse of the rocket emerging briefly from cloud atop a pillar of fire -- that will be the money shot, if someone captured it.

Thanks again for the updates.

--Emily

Bhas, we are told the impact probe will hit the rim of Shackleton. Do you have any source that gives a precise target point, in coordinates or on an image?

Phil

This site maintains a helpful list of links to news stories about the mission. The first post-launch news stories have just appeared.

--Emily

I don't have. I will try though.

Here is another picture of the mission.
Click to view attachment

NOTE: as Phil has pointed out the Launch vehicle shown here is that of GSLV. Rest of info. is all about Chandrayaan-I.

Update from ISRO

Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair described the successful launch as a historic moment in India's space programme.
"The launch was perfect and precise. The satellite has been placed in the earth orbit. With this, we have completed the first leg of the mission and it will take 15 days to reach the lunar orbit," Nair announced in the mission control centre shortly after PSLV-C11 put the spacecraft in a transfer orbit.

After circling the earth in its highly elliptical Transfer Orbit for a while, Chandrayaan-1 would be taken into more elliptical orbits by repeated firing of the spacecraft's Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) at opportune moments.
Subsequently, the LAM would be again fired to take the spacecraft to the vicinity of the moon by following a Lunar Transfer Trajectory (LTT) path, whose apogee lies at 3,87,000 km.

Later, when Chandrayaan-1 reaches the vicinity of the moon, its LAM would be fired again so as to slow down the spacecraft sufficiently to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical orbit. The next step would be to reduce the height of the spacecraft orbit around the moon in various steps.
After some more procedures, Chandrayaan-1's orbit would be finally lowered to its intended 100 km height from the lunar surface, which was expected to take place around November 8.

Later, the Moon Impact Probe would be ejected from Chandrayaan-1 in a chosen area following which the cameras and other payloads would be turned on and thoroughly tested, marking the operational phase of the mission.

"Fortunately, we had clear skies today and we would be completing the remaining part of the journey within 15 days," Nair said.

After launch, action shifts to Bangalore centre

Once the launch is done at Sriharikota, Peenya in Bangalore will take over Chandrayaan-I — the spacecraft and mission.

Hectic activity is on at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) at Peenya, which will be the country's nerve-centre for tracking and controlling Chandrayaan-I for the next two years.

Peenya will receive the first signals from the spacecraft 17 minutes after take-off, when the fourth stage of the rocket separates and injects the spacecraft into Earth's orbit. From the 17th minute to the very last day of the spacecraft's life — two years from now — ISTRAC will be in command.

The Deep Space Network (DSN) at Byalalu will join ISTRAC in tracking the spacecraft six hours after take-off. Both DSN and ISTRAC will act as back-up stations for each other, with ISTRAC concentrating on the data flow from the spacecraft, and DSN helping in reception of the radio signals owing to its powerful 32-metre antenna. But ISTRAC will be the primary agency tracking the craft.

The control centre at ISTRAC has about 350 people monitoring the health of Indian satellites. While there are groups designated for specific satellites, any member from any group could be called upon to help with Chandrayaan.

On Tuesday, engineers at ISTRAC were busy running last-minute checks on simulators, communication links, quality of links, verifying operations of systems and testing for 100% accuracy in reception, flow and expression of data. ISTRAC deputy director Chiranjeevi said, "There is work every two-three seconds. We have to ensure that all systems are working to perfection."

Chiranjeevi said ISTRAC would receive the first signals from the spacecraft in the form of engineering units — data on computers. "There will be hundreds of such units flowing in. We will check the units for voltage on the craft, temperature, power, battery strength, orbit determination and orientation, fuel and general health of the spacecraft."

He said engineers will work in shifts to monitor Chandrayaan every minute for the next two years. "They sit in front of the computers and look at data flow based on which control commands are operated. But there are 2,000 parameters to check on and it would be humanly impossible to get engineers to monitor every one of them. So we have automatic software systems in place that will immediately alert us to any change in operations and sequence," Chiranjeevi explained.

"We can't get anything wrong. We have been maintaining satellites for the last 20 years and it would be the same with Chandrayaan," he added.

I checked Heaven's Above but it didn't have any info on seeing Chandrayaan 1, does anyone know if it will be visible over North America?

Some snaps of Launch

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

बधाई भारत के लिए इस उपलब्धि पर!

Not bad at Portuguese public channel news coverage...Chandrayaan I arrived right after Champions League and global economic crisis.
Clean and with no mistakes, with a focus on Helium-3.

Hi Bhas,

your first picture seems to be a night Sea Launch

Excellent replies, nice videos by Doug !
Good report by BBC

Anyway, I would like to have some book info:
Destination Moon by Pallava Bagla (India)

Does it describe Chandrayaan-1 and -2?
Does anybody have ISBN number?

Removed it. - Thanks for pointing out. :-(

Details about book:
Title : Destination Moon [ : India's Quest for the Moon, Mars and Beyond ]
Author: Pallava Bagla
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9788172236762
Seller: Indus International
Price : 195 Rupees [ about 4$ ]

" The book tells the story of India's moon mission right from its conception to launch.
It also sheds light on India's maiden moon craft, Chandrayaan-1 which will seek to unravel the mysteries
of the earth's closest neighbour that is still an enigma. "

For those who like compare numbers (like I do), here is some data about recent/near future lunar probes:


s/c ; mass in lunar orbit ; lunar orbit ; imager resolution

SMART-1 ; 370 kg ; 2300 x 4500 km polar ; 80 m/pix
Kaguya ; 2885 kg ; 100 km polar ; 10 m/pix
Chang'e-1 ; ?* ; 200 km polar** ; 120 m/pix
Chandrayaan-1 ; 590 kg ; 100 km polar ; 5 m/pix
LRO ; 1823 kg ; 50 km polar ; 0.5 m/pix


* Chang'e-1 mass is according to Wikipedia 2350 kg, but I don't know if it is launch mass or mass in lunar orbit

** inclination ca 90 deg according to http://150.197.1.105:10000/KariWeb/fulltext1/05_1/515.pdf
but ca 64 deg according to Wikipedia

Sources:
presentations from LRO Project Science Working Group Meeting November 28, 2006 (sorry, can't find them online right now, but the link is somewhere in UMSF.com)
http://150.197.1.105:10000/KariWeb/fulltext1/05_1/515.pdf
Wikipedia

‘Once Chandrayaan goes near the moon, we will be there to track it’
Full Story : http://www.hindu.com/2008/10/22/stories/2008102255641100.htm
Has more information about IDSN.

There was a huge press-conference here, in Bulgaria. Please, be patient - I'm going to publish some interesting information about the mission.

Doug, Stu - was there a press-conference in England about the mission and the UK-built instrument?

There was going to be : http://www.sstd.rl.ac.uk/c1xs/C1_Launch.htm - however, it was cancelled. (I was going to attend that ) There was an 1000 meeting, but I couldn't make that. I've not seen anything on the media -( apart from very short pieces just showing the launch )

Doug

And some interesting data:

It was estimated that Bulgaria spent 60 000 Bulgarian levs on RADOM-7. I can't say for sure, but it's about $40000! Compare this to the instruments of NASA and ESA. RADOM-7 is one of the cheapest instruments aboard Chandrayaan-1.

When I asked when the instrument is going to be switched on, they said that it depends on the Indian coleagues. But we expect that it will be switched on when we pass the Van Allen belts. Then we hope to collect information about the radiation levels during the trip to the Moon and in lunar orbit.

RADOM-7 is a successor of several other instruments which were flying aboard Mir and ISS, but this is about manned exploration and I will stop here. However I will say that our results are often cited in international scientific journals and that's why our participation aboard Chandrayaan-1 must not surprise anybody.

Phil,

May be the "actual target point" is not decided yet.
also, Since this is going to be "impact" probe, exact location may not (my guess) be that important.

as far as ISROs update : It would travel for about "28 minutes" from time it is released from the orbiter to impact point at polar region.

Hi - the target is important. The nominal descent trajectory has to intersect the surface somewhere, so the first question is, where is that point? But where it is is very important for another reason - if you are taking images on the way down, the area to be imaged has to be illuminated, and that's a big issue at the poles. My point is that there must be a precise target, though it might not have been publicly announced yet.

Phil

Antennae turn to Chandrayaan - From "The Hindu"

Training their gaze on India’s maiden moon launch on Wednesday are antennae at Mauritius, Brunei, Biak (Indonesia) and Bearslake (Russia), Goldstone, Maryland, Hawaii (U.S.), Brazil, Russia, Lucknow, Sriharikota, Thiruvananthapuram, Port Blair and, of course, the giant antennae at Byalalu, which will feed ISTRAC with telemetric information on the health of Chandrayaan.
....
“For the first 48 hours we will be receiving telemetry data on the health of the satellite from all these stations. Typically these stations have 10 metre antennae which are sufficient to track the satellite at this stage,” said O. Chiranjeevi, Group Director, ISTRAC. The antennae at Byalalu will begin to pick up signals within six hours after its launch, said Dr. Shivakumar. The Indian Deep Space Network Facility includes two antennae – a 32 metre one and an 18 metre one. However, the true work of these antennae will begin later once the satellite reaches a distance of over one lakh kilometres in a couple of days".






Phil,

Ok. I will keep looking for the information about MIP.

- Bhas

Hi Bhas,

thanks for the information on the " Destination Moon " book but in Your post # 65, the drawing shows a GSLV launch vehicle
(Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle)

Compare with:

I think that this is a fanstatic achievement for India. This mission will really give their aerospace, science and engineering sectors a real boost and further the development of the country.

Will the probe be able to photograph surface features with the same resolution os the planned LRO? It would be great if we could discern some of the Apollo landing sites. Also, what are India's long-term plans with respect to the Moon? I very much hope that this is the beginning of a whole range of exploratory missions.

Interesting Update
=============

Why ISRO changed the orbit-transfer strategy - From Hindu

The revised strategy will have five earth-bound orbits
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had earlier planned two earth-bound orbits for the spacecraft before it moved towards the moon. Much like in the case of the earth orbits, two lunar orbits were planned for before the spacecraft reached the final lunar orbit destination — circular orbit of about 100 km from the moon’s surface.
But ISRO had revised the orbit-transfer strategy. In the revised strategy, there will be five earth-bound orbits. The first orbit will have an apogee (farthest point from the earth) of 23,000 km and perigee of 255 km.

Increasing apogees
The second orbit will have an apogee of about 1,60,000 km and the third orbit will have an apogee of about 2,60,000 km. The fourth earth-bound orbit will have an apogee of about 3,87,000 km. It will take about 11 days to complete the fourth earth-bound orbit. During the fifth earth-bound orbit, which will have an apogee of about 3,84,000 km, the spacecraft will approach the moon’s North pole at a safe distance of a few hundred kilometres.

To calibrate the systems
“Basically, we wanted to calibrate our systems, such as the ground tracking system. When we get out of earth’s influence [gravity], there will be an influence of other planets, sun and moon’s gravity. We have theoretical knowledge of this influence. But getting actual data will be more useful to calibrate our systems,” said Dr. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of ISRO.
“The fourth and fifth orbits go up to the final point before it [the spacecraft] comes back. So this will help us to calibrate the systems better,” he said.
“[The earth-bound orbits] will tell us how far our assumptions and models are correct,” Dr. Nair said.

To avoid errors
The earlier orbit-transfer strategy involving just two earth-bound orbits would have also provided the essential data. “When we do it [in fewer and smaller orbits] in a short period, we have to evaluate all the parameters in a shorter time. So some errors can arise,” said Dr. Nair, explaining why the orbit-transfer strategy was changed.
In the revised strategy, there will be two lunar orbits before the spacecraft reaches the final circular orbit of about 100 km from the moon’s surface.
But will the revised strategy, which will involve longer period in space before it reaches its final destination, lead to more fuel consumption and hence affect the total mission duration? “The fuel consumption will be the same and the mission life will also be the same,” he stressed.

== So, Ideally it should have taken 5.5 days to reach moon. and I was wandering why we have to wait close to 2 weeks to get data... Now we know.

Byalalu tunes in to moon mission - From Hindu

Bangalore: At 1.20 p.m., exactly seven hours after the launch of Chandrayaan 1 from Sriharikota, the giant saucer-shaped antennae, standing out conspicuously amid the stark landscape of Byalalu village near Bangalore, began to rotate gently as it picked up the first signals from the lunar spacecraft.

On a rainy Wednesday afternoon the mood at the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) here was celebratory as scientists received data from the parabolic antennae indicating that Chandrayaan I was in good health and on track. The 20 space scientists at the IDSN who had kept awake through Tuesday night in preparation for this moment applauded and shook hands as the first signal flickered on the telemetry monitors. “Everything worked out just perfectly and we received the data exactly as scheduled,” said L. Srinivasan, General Manager of ISRO’s Bangalore Telemetry, Tracking and Command Facility.Not far, a much larger group of scientists at the mission’s nerve centre, ISTRAC (ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network), analysed the telemetric data from Byalalu sent through a communication link.

“For the next four or five days, Chandrayaan will be tracked by several small antennae around the world. After this period, when the satellite crosses one lakh kilometres, only three ground stations with large antennae will track it: those at Byalalu, Maryland and Canberra,” said Mr. Srinivasan.

The Byalalu centre will be one of only two ground stations by the time the payload data from the 11 experiments on board comes in, the other one being Maryland.....

ISTRAC director S.K. Shivakumar says that
DSN got the first signals at 1.28pm yesterday.
and by that time spacecraft has already completed one orbit. (this is within 6.5hrs of launch).

also, It is now almost confirmed that Lunar orbit insertion must be done by Nov, 8th.

New Stories are slowly coming out...

When the Moon Mission had a major scare
A "small" fuel spill mishap when the Polar rocket with the Chandrayaan-I spacecraft atop was being fuelled created a near "scare" during the final countdown for the launch of India's maiden unmanned moon mission, ISRO Chief Madhavan Nair said.
This was revealed by Nair who earlier in the day spoke of how space scientists at the Sriharikota spaceport faced an "ordeal" after rains pounded the area and surrounding parts for nearly five days.
"Yesterday, we had a small mishap during filling operation when some of the fuel spilled over from one of the courses of the ground system and this created almost a scare," Nair said.
The ISRO chief also said launch personnel had to clear the "pad" and then carry out repairs before proceeding with the blast-off preparations.
"We had to take a tough decision as to how much of fuel had to be loaded, how much as to be unloaded and number of operations to be carried out simultaneously which we have never done earlier," he said.
"We lost 10 hours in the countdown yesterday due to inclement weather and almost lost the hope of making the launch. But working against all odds ISRO team has won the game," Nair said. North-East monsoon usually peaks over the eastern coast around this time of the year.
"It was an ordeal and never before we had such horrible weather just ahead of the launch date," he added.

Kudos to the team for "successful launch" in spite of these issues...

I dropped in this evening on a social event being held in connection with a Cassini project science group meeting, and chatted with a scientist who's working on one of the American-contributed instruments. He was very pleased the launch went well, of course, and I said something like "Well, India's already proven they can do launches; I didn't worry too much about that, but I'm glad the spacecraft is on its way." He shook his head and said that the mission was so bent on getting Chandrayaan-1 launched on the stated date that although they went through all the testing -- shake and bake and so on -- that after they were done with the shake test they buttoned the thing up and shipped it off to the launch site before they had even analyzed the data from the prelaunch testing. They were in too much of a hurry to look at the data. Another scientist laughed and said "Well I guess as long as nothing fell off during the shake test they figured it was okay." Still, kind of scary! The first scientist said it's just about two weeks to orbit "and then the fire hose opens up" in terms of data.

--Emily

Like a "scientist" would know how to interpret the results of a vibe test anyway. Beakers.

as per new Orbit Transfer Strategy (Chandrayaan-I) ...

Earth Bound Orbits
1. Elliptical orbit - Perigee: 255km,
Apogee: 22,860km
2. Highly Elliptical orbit - Perigee: 300km
Apogee: 160000km
3. Intermediate transfer orbit - Perigee: 300km
Apogee: 2,60,000km
4. Extremely high elliptical orbit: Perigee: 300km
Apogee: 3,87,000km
5. Extremely high elliptical orbit: Perigee: 2000km
Apogee: 3,84,000km

Moon Bound Orbits
1. Lunar orbit 1 - Perigee: 500km
Apogee: 5000km
2. Lunar orbit 2 - Perigee: 100km
Apogee: 5000km
3. Lunar orbit 3 - Perigee: 100km
Apogee: 100km

Chandrayaan-1, India's first lunar orbiter, continued its long journey to the moon as operations planned by the
Indian Space Research Organisation scientists for raising its orbit went on satisfactorily on Thursday.....
The health of the spacecraft is normal seems to be normal.
The orbit-raising operations were carried out by scientists at ISRO's (ISTRAC) along with experts from ISRO centres.

'Satisfactorily'? Normaly the PR-folks prefer to say 'as planned', 'as expected' or something like that. I'm curious if there has been some minor anomalies during operations?

These aren't western PR folks, though.

English is a second language for the C1 team - and to be honest, I think they're doing an awesome job of it so far.

Doug

Indeed. It's also probably a cultural difference thing.

Ha!-I noticed this too. It makes you realise how we're twisting and mangling our own language. When exactly did 'satisfactory' come to mean 'just a whisker off disastrous'? Indeed it's refreshing to go to India or Pakistan and hear english words still being used properly.

etc..

First, thanks for posting these continued updates, Bhas. And congratulations.

I am curious, though, why this was a 'revised strategy'. I mean, it's all very well to
take things slow to do better orbit determination etc., but why not design that in from the
start - what new information led to this 'revision' ? Was it just contact with the reality
of doing the orbit determination, or something else ?

Thanks.
Final Approval for Chandrayaan-II with 486 Crore given last week by Cabinet.
Now, ISRO has a clear picture about future mission(s). This could be one reason.
I will look for any further explanation about this from ISRO.

Do we have any idea of ISRO's policy concerning the release of images to the public? I hope we will have access to the Chandrayaan-1 images, because I'm a bit frustrated by the low rate of release of the Kaguya images, not to mention Chang-e. I wonder if that last probe is still doing its thing up there, because we haven't had news for a long time.