The landing on the moon near the South Pole, an uncharted territory so far, would be on September 6 or 7, Sivan told reporters, as the Indian space agency is all set to embark on its most complex mission.
The government has sanctioned seed money of Rs 10 crore to carry out various studies on experiments to be conducted, route of the mission and other related details necessary to scale the new frontier, said ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair.
ISRO officials said that the Rs 330 crore mission failed minutes after the rocket lifted off at 4.27 pm. Although they would go ahead with the same mission next year, it is still considered to be a setback since ISRO had planned on using the GSLV rocket for its second moon mission.
The camera was switched on at 10:05 am through a series of commands issued from the spacecraft control centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network here.
India's advanced multi-band communication satellite GSAT-7, launched from French Guiana by European space consortium Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket on August 30, has been successfully placed in the geosynchronous orbit with an altitude of about 36,000 km above earth's surface.
"We have been able to detect NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Indian Space Research Organisation's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in lunar orbit with ground-based radar," said Marina Brozovic, a radar scientist at JPL and principal investigator for the test project.
The space agency launched 104 satellites, breaking the previous record of 37 by Russia.
'Modi's charisma and appeal is unparalleled.' 'Yogi has his own appeal and people connect.' 'He is seen as trustworthy, hardworking and honest.' 'People feel that these qualities are both common to Yogi and Modi.'
As scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation are decoding the data sent by Chandrayaan-1 from the moon, the space agency is confident that India's first lunar mission would reveal 'unexpected results and things'. "The data have been collected from unexplored area. We are well positioned with these data. We can tell the world that we have found many things, which no explorer has seen so far," Chandrayaan-I Project Director M Annadurai said on Saturday.
There is a huge spurt in demand to launch smaller satellites, those as light as 1 kg, with a lifespan of two to three years. But there aren't enough rockets to carry these, reports T E Narasimhan
The Indian Space Research Organisation will launch four foreign satellites this year as it seeks to make further inroads into the international satellite-building and launch services market in 2009.
The 3,357-kg satellite, which was deployed from the lower passenger position of Ariane-5 launch vehicle (VA 251) into the geostationary transfer orbit, is configured on ISRO's enhanced I-3K Bus structure to provide communication services from Geostationary orbit in C and Ku bands.
A team of scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation will soon arrive in Leh to find out more about the mysterious luminous objects seen on the horizon over a lake in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir. Official sources said that after getting preliminary reports that the luminous objects flying over the horizon of Pangong Lake, located 160 km from Leh, could be Chinese lanterns, the security agencies wanted an assessment by experts.
Former Indian Space Research Organisation chief G Madhavan Nair has expressed his unhappiness over top scientist Roddam Narasimha's decision to resign. Narasimha announced his resignation from ISRO in protest against the blacklisting of Nair and three other scientists over the controversial Antrix-Devas deal. Talking to reporters, Nair said he hoped the respective authorities would be able to convince Narasimha to stay on.
Global analysts say a successful launch of operational GSLV MkII rocket will reduce dependency for ISRO on foreign launchers.
"The launch of Chandrayaan 2 will be in 2014. We are working towards it. It would be on a GSLV, after we launch two GSLVs within an interval of six months," ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan told reporters here soon after the launch of RISAT-1.
Violation of the provisions entails a punishment of a jail term up to five years or with fine up to Rs 1 crore or with both, the ordinance released by the Ministry of Law and Justice on Thursday said.
The final 52-hour countdown for the October 22 launch of the country's first moon mission, Chandrayaan-I, began early on Monday morning at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
A highly respected scientist with 35 years of experience in ISRO, 60-year-old Radhakrishnan has played a key role in many of the country's space projects, including Chandrayaan-I.
"The Resourcesat-1 launched today was equal to half a dozen people in space for a period\n\nof five to six years," ISRO chief Dr Madhavan Nair said.
Of the 109 lunar missions during the period, 61 were successful and 48 had failed, it stated.
The website of Indian Space Research Organisation's commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited was reportedly hacked on Sunday and the space agency said efforts are on to set it right.
The space agency lines up GSLV-III and Chandrayan-II in 2017-18.
Indian Space Research Organisation's Mars Mission team has won the prestigious 2015 Space Pioneer Award in the science and engineering category in recognition of achieving the rare feat in its very first attempt.
A memorandum of understanding to this effect was signed on Wednesday.
Nearly a month after the Kerala high court ordered the government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to scientist Nambi Narayananan for being falsely implicated in the Indian Space Research Organisation spy case, the state government on Wednesday decided to honour the verdict by paying him the amount at the earliest.
Did Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) goof-up when it announced that Chandrayaan-1 would have a mission life of two years as none of the lunar craft launched by other nations lasted that long? On the hindsight, officials of the Bangalore-based space agency admit that they probably did.
The placing of four satellites into orbit on October 12, 2011 is yet another milestone in the glorious career of Indian Space Research Organisation's trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Nair, who has been barred from holding any government post for his alleged role in the controversial Antirx-Devas deal, was in Patna on Friday to bid farewell to his colleagues.
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