India launches first unmanned moon mission
India launched its first mission to the moon Wednesday, rocketing a satellite up into the dawn sky in a two-year mission to redraw maps of the lunar surface.
Clapping and cheering scientists tracked the ascent on computer screens after they lost sight of Chandrayaan-1 from the Sriharikota space center in southern India.
India launched its first mission to the moon Wednesday, rocketing a satellite up into the dawn sky in a two-year mission to redraw maps of the lunar surface.
Clapping and cheering scientists tracked the ascent on computer screens after they lost sight of Chandrayaan-1 from the Sriharikota space center in southern India. Chandrayaan means “Moon Craft” in ancient Sanskrit.
Indian Space Research Organization chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the mission is to “unravel the mystery of the moon.”
If successful, India will join what’s shaping up as a 21st-century space race with Chinese and Japanese crafts already in orbit around the moon. To date, only the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China have sent missions to the moon.
Brief by The Associated Press
