TeamIndus, a private aerospace startup company seemed to have one-upped the ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 project. The company is planning to send a spacecraft to the moon, with the help of a launch rocket by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
The scheduled launch date of the rocket is December 28, 2017. This will be India’s first private moon mission to be launched, which until now have been regulated solely by the government. ISRO’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will be taking the TeamIndus’s rocket to the moon.
TeamIndus won the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a 30 million USD competition. Based in Bengaluru, TeamIndus is led by Rahul Narayan. He heads a reach of over 100 members with a pool of engineers, space enthusiasts, former Air Force pilots, and former ISRO employees. The investors range from Ratan Tata of the Tata Group to Binny and Sachin Bansal, co-founders of Flipkart and Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys.
Here’s all you need to know about their moon project:
Earlier in an interview this year, Rahul Narayan, CEO of Team Indus revealed,
“It is a full-length spacecraft, about 1.8 meters long, 6 feet high, with multiple sensors mounted in it, a dozen cameras on board and solar panels to generate energy as it goes along.”
“It is designed in Domlur, integrated at Domlur and hence made in Domlur,” he added. The components for the spacecraft have been imported from various countries.
In a three-day window centered on December 28, 2017, ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will inject the spacecraft into an orbit around the earth. The spacecraft will then undertake a 21-day journey to land at Mare Imbrium, a region in the North-Western hemisphere of the moon.
TeamIndus investors include Ratan Tata, co-founders of Flipkart Sachin and Binny Bansal, and co-founder of Infosys Ltd Nandan Nilekani.
H/t & Image Source:IndiaToday.in