May 11, 2014
Chandrayaan-2 Rover Undergoing Tests
by Vijainder K Thakur
Chandrayaan-2 project director Dr. Annadurai recently told The Hindu, "We have realized a six-wheeled rover and it is being tested in the lunar terrain facility. The design work on the lander is in progress in ISRO. Everything about the Chandrayaan-2 mission is Indian. The launch vehicle, the orbiter, the lander and the rover are all from India."
The Rover's mobility is being tested at the ISRO Satellite Integration and Testing Establishment (ISITE) in Bangalore.
Anorthosite rock from Sithampoondi and Kunnamalai, about 260-km from Bangalore, has been pulverized and laid out at the lunar terrain facility.
The chemical and mechanical properties of pulverized Anorthosite rock closely resemble those of lunar soil.
Geologists from Periyar University, Salem; the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi; the, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad are collaborating with ISRO on the Chandrayaan-2 project.
S. Anbazhagan, Professor and Head of the Department of Geology, Periyar University, told The Hindu, "We had done spectral studies on the lunar soil and we discovered its equivalent at Sithampoondi."
According to S. Anbazhagan, the moon has two types of rocks - basaltic and anorthosite. The latter covers a vast area of the moon.
The Rover has been designed in Russia, but has been fabricated to Russians specs by Indian scientists.
Powered with a small solar panel, it features semi-autonomous navigation and hazard avoidance capability. It is built to communicate with Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) using the Lander Rover Communication System on-board the Lander, or through the Orbiter Rover Communication System on-board the Orbiter.
The Rover would be loaded with driving commands such as - turn left, turn right, go forward, go backwards. It would then execute those commands autonomously.
Through the Chandrayan-2 mission, ISRO scientists hope to hone their deep space communication technology - transmission of commands to the payloads and reception of data collected by them - for future planetary exploration.
The Rover is built to collect soil samples and analyse them using two scientific payloads weighing 2-kg:
Laser induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) from Laboratory for Electro Optic Systems ( LEOS), Bangalore. (In English, a laser ablation tool for spectral analysis of rocks and soil.)
Alpha Particle Induced X-ray Spectroscope (APIXS) from PRL, Ahmedabad.
Both instruments are expected to carry out elemental analysis of the lunar surface near the landing site.
The Rover was initially designed to have 4 wheels but following test of a Bread Board Model (BBM) at the Lunar Terrain Test Facility, ISITE, it has now been decided that the Rover will have six wheels.
In May 2014, Chandrayaan-2 project director Dr. Annadurai told The Hindu that the rover would move about on the moon for one lunar day (14 earth days.)
The Chandrayaan-2 Lunar Rover is a much more modest project than the six wheeled, 140 kg Chinese lunar rover named Yutu which landed on the moon on December 14, 2013 as part of the Chang'e-3 mission.
Yutu, which is now dormant on the Moon, is approximately 1.5 m high and features two wing like solar panels for generating power. In addition, Yutu has a radioisotope thermoelectric generator which it the ability to survive the 14-day lunar night when surface temperatures plummet to -150 deg Celsius. (Surface temperatures can be as height as +180 deg Celsius during the lunar day.
For additional information on the Chandrayaan-2 project, please visit the link below.
Chandrayaan - 2 - Indian Space Projects
https://sites.google.com/site/indianspaceprojects/moon-exploration/chandrayaan---2
