India to mark entry on Moon tomorrow

The Indian flag is all set to mark its presence on the lunar surface for the first time tomorrow as a moon probe with the tri-colour painted on it will detach from Chandrayaan-1 and descend onto the earth's natural satellite.

"The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) is expected to be detached (from Chandrayaan-1) at around 10 PM tomorrow," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spokesperson S Satish told PTI.

Miniature Indian flags are painted on four sides of MIP. "It will signify the entry of India on Moon," Satish said.

"During its 20-minute descend to the moon's surface, MIP will take pictures and transmit these back to the ground," he said.

MIP is one of the 11 scientific instruments (payloads) onboard Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft mission to the Moon launched on October 22.

The spacecraft yesterday reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms over the moon surface after ISRO scientists successfully carried out the last critical orbit lowering operation.

Developed by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP is to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon.

The probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions. This apart, scientific exploration of the moon at close distance is also intended using MIP.