ISRO releases Chandrayaan-2 data; hails its 'excellent capability to deliver on promises'

Indian Research Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday released first set of data from country's second mission to Moon, Chandrayaan-2, for general public. Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22 last year from Satish Dhawan Center, Sriharikota, in Andhra Pradesh.

'Excellent capability to deliver on pre-launch promises'

Orbiter which was injected into a lunar orbit on September 2, 2019, carries eight experiments to address many open questions on lunar science. "All experiments have been performing well and data received suggests excellent capability to deliver on pre-launch promises," ISRO said.

In period since launch, payload teams tuned on-board systems for optimal instrument configurations, derived essential in-flight calibration data, revised/updated data processing steps/software and have started to publish early results, it said. On Thursday first set of data was being released for all users, ISRO furr said.

" public release data archived at Indian Science Data Centre in Bylalu, near Bengaluru is prepared in standard, globally followed Planetary Data System 4 (PDS4) format for public release," it added.

Indian Science Data Centre (ISSDC) is dal centre of planetary data archive for planetary missions of ISRO. " Chandrayaan-2 data is required to be in Planetary Data System-4 (PDS4) standard, and is required to be peer-reviewed scientifically and technically before acceptance as PDS archives and declared ready for sharing with global scientific community and general public," ISRO said. 

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This activity has been completed and hence first set of data from Chandrayaan-2 mission is w being released for wider public use through PRADAN portal hosted by ISSDC. ISRO Science Data Archive (ISDA) currently holds data sets acquired by Chandrayaan-2 payloads from September-2019 to February-2020 from seven instruments.

Data sets from Imaging Infra-Red Spectrometer (IIRS) payload will be added to this shortly, it said, adding that this release has Level-0 and Level-1 basic data sets prepared using Planetary Data System (PDS) version 4 standards.

Chandrayaan-2 mission was India's first attempt to land on lunar surface. ISRO had planned landing on South Pole region of lunar surface. However, lander Vikram hard-landed in September last year. Its orbiter, which is still in lunar orbit, has a mission life of seven years. ISRO Chairman K Sivan had recently said that work on Chandrayaan-3 mission, comprising a lander and a rover, was in progress. "We have t yet fixed schedule (for Chandrayaan-3 launch)," he had said.

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(With PTI inputs)