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ISRO adopts thermal management measures

CHENNAI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has adopted measures to maintain the temperature on the surface of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft below 50 degrees Celsius and the spacecraft is functioning normally, according to S. Satish, Director, Publications and Public Relations, ISRO.

In the wake of press reports that the temperature had shot up abnormally, Mr. Satish said this was the moon’s ‘summer season.’ Since Chandrayaan-1 was orbiting the moon over its poles at an altitude of 100 km and the lunar surface was lit up by the sun, a rise in the temperature was expected.

The ISRO had used “excellent thermal control management measures” to control the temperature, which otherwise would have risen to more than 100 degrees Celsius, he said.

With the lunar surface sun-lit now, Chandrayaan-1’s imaging instruments such as the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI), and Chandrayaan-1 Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (CIXS) were being used to take pictures.

The summer was expected to last till the middle of January. After that, Chandrayaan-1’s two high voltage instruments, the High Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX) and the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA) would be switched on, the ISRO official said.

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