Chandrayaan-1: Laser Ranging Instrument goes operational

Bangalore: With all its major, high risk, manoeuvres successfully negotiated, India's lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 has now begun to out the mission phase into operation by switching on its various payloads. ISRO scientists said the Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI), one of the 11 payloads carried by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, was successfully turned on today as it passed over the western part of the moon's visible hemisphere.

An Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) statement said preliminary assessment of data from the LLRI indicated the instrument was performing normally.

The LLRI sends pulses of infrared laser light towards a strip of lunar surface and detects the reflected portion of that light. With this, the instrument can very accurately measure the height of moon's surface features. According to scientists, the instrument will be kept on continuously and take 10 measurements per second on both day and night sides of the moon.

It will also provide topographical details of both the polar and equatorial regions of the moon. It is hoped that detailed analysis of the data sent by the LLRI would help in understanding the internal structure of the moon as well as the way earth's permanent satellite evolved.

Earlier, three other payloads of Chandrayaan-1, the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM) and Moon Impact Probe (MIP), were all successfully deployed.

The LLRI is the fourth of the moon's payloads to go operational.