India is all set to launch its latest unmanned moon mission on Wednesday, 22nd October. On the dawn of this day, nearly thousand highly qualified scientists will work together to launch India’s first moon mission, Chandrayaan-1, (C-1).

From the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, C-1 would be launched about 10 minutes after sunrise. This centre is located at the little peninsula of Sriharikota, India’s spaceport on the Bay of Bengal.

The mission is quite complex as it would involve handling of heavy equipments at a distance of 400,000 km, through the radio signals that control these systems, which can prove to be quite challenging.

Though there is always a chance that a space mission might fail, scientists are confident that Chandrayaan-1 would be successful. But if in case it would fail, it will fall into the sea, and if in case a deviation happens from the proposed path or other malfunctions, the launch vehicle can be blown up. According to V Krishnamurthy, general manager (safety) of the mission, “Once the vehicle lifts off, nothing can be done. We won’t simply destroy because of a marginal deviation or malfunction. We destroy it only when there is a chance of it causing catastrophic damage.”

But as explained earlier, there is very little chance for this mission to fail, at least at the launch. The main aim of C-1 is to put a 1.5 metre cube into orbit, about 100 km above the lunar surface, for two years. Lot of experiments will be conducted and all sort of dat would also be acquired. Other than this, C-1 also has a moon impact probe that will crash into the moon itself and plunge a tricolor on the surface, venturing India’s claims to the moon.

Very complex systems integration has undergone for the creation of C-1 and right now the mission head of the project, M Annadurai, is keeping his fingers crossed for the successful launching of the mission. He had been deeply concerned with the mission since July 21 when the integration of the launch vehicle started.

M C Dathan, director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR reported, “People from the lowest to the top level are working round the clock with great excitement. All of them are self-motivated and don’t need to be set a target. We have not seen this kind of team spirit with any other project in the past.”