Students from across the globe will come here to work with us, says Somak Raychaudhury, Iucaa director

Somak Raychaudhury, director of Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Iucaa),has worked on several Nasa projects and is currently involved various projects with the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) in astrophysics. He speaks to Dheeraj Bengrut about the successful launch of Chandrayaan-2 mission.

1. How would you quantify the successful launch of Chandrayaan-2 mission?

I am personally excited for two reasons related to the successful launch of this mission. Firstly, the science that is going to get done with Chandrayaan 2 and secondly, what it means to our future scientific advancement. ISRO started off by doing a lot of remote sensing, satellites and GPS (global positioning system), but to do pure science from space is new for ISRO. So it has now opened up to let in the scientific community of India after the launch of Chandrayaan 2.

2. What separates Chandrayaan 2 from the Chandrayaan 1 mission?

Chandrayaan 1 was an experiment which was done by the people within Isro, it was mostly to look at the technological capability of sending something around the moon. It had some very basic instruments if you compare it with the global instruments that are on other satellites. But one of the major things that happened was they managed to find some evidence of water which was wonderful and unexpected. In that way, Chandrayaan 2 is far more important, but it is more complex. It is not only going to go around the moon, but it is going to land on the moon. Landing on the moon will be a big thing for us and if we are successful there will be new revelations.

3. What is Chandrayaan 2 going to test and study on the moon?

Chandrayaan 2 will be going near the south pole and it is going to study the surface of the moon. The moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, but it has air very close to the surface – gas and particles, this is one thing which the lunar vehicle will study. Near the pole there are more chances of getting liquid water, so that’s another reason Chndrayaan-2 will be landing there.

So apart from the rover in the Chandrayaan 2, there are ten more instruments and they are going to do various examinations from above in the orbit. They are going to do laser ranging and radar ranging to find out what is under the surface of the moon. They are going to take spectra of various substances on the moon.

4. Will this project affect research in the country?

This mission gives the message to the youth of our country that we can explore space science with the implementation of high-quality technology. The experts who are involved in the launch of this mission are all Indian trained engineers. There are thousands of men and women engineers in Isro who are involved in various other world-leading science and technological developments. So they all are an inspiration to the youths of today to work for your own country than looking for options abroad. After 10 to 15 years, students from across the globe will come here to work with us.