The launch has been widely reported in international media, here are a few random links: USA, Germany, UK, France, Norway, Australia. I’ll add more links as I come across them.

Best of luck to the new team!

The ILEWG Awards celebrate the top lunar achievements in science, technology, international cooperation, community service, commerce and outreach. The Lunex YLE Award is given to an entity promoting lunar exploration among young lunar explorers.

The awards were given to the following recipients:

• The ILEWG Science Award is given to JAXA Kaguya science team, for the successful science exploitation of the Kaguya mission after one year of operations, with the publication of unprecedented maps of lunar gravity, topography, surface chemistry and multi-band high resolution images.
• The ILEWG Technology Award is given to NASA Constellation and LRO/LCROSS teams, for the development of advanced technologies within hard constraints of short time and cost, for the Constellations programme (Orion crew vehicle, Ares Launch vehicle, Altair Lunar Lander), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.
• The ILEWG International Cooperation Award is given to the ISRO Chandrayaan-1 team, for the challenging accommodation and tests of the most international lunar payload ever (from 20 countries: India, ESA European Space Agency representing 17 European countries, NASA, Bulgaria), with a successful launch of the probe on the PSLV on 22 October 2008 and the upcoming lunar insertion on 8 November.
• The ILEWG Community Service Award is given to Dr Clive Neal, lunar scientist from Notre-Dame University, for his services to the community, Lunar List register, and leadership of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG).
• The ILEWG Commerce Award & Outreach Award are given to the Google Lunar X Prize, for initiating the challenge of a commercial robotic race to the Moon to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives. It will inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. It has generated a huge interest for the Moon and space exploration in the public and the media.
• The Young Lunar Explorers Award 2008 was given to Google Lunar X Prize, because of the wide reaching effect the GLXP has had on promoting lunar exploration among young people around the world. Several GLXP teams are run by students or have strong student participation, and the general outreach caused by the announcement of the prize has ignited a world wide desire among young people to be a part of the return to the Moon.

Congratulations to the winning teams, and especially the Google Lunar X Prize for the tremendous impact it has had on promoting both private and student lunar exploration initiatives!

When the final orbit is reached Chandrayaan-1’s main task will be to:

• To place an unmanned spacecraft in an orbit around the moon
• To conduct mineralogical and chemical mapping of the lunar surface
• To upgrade the technological base in the country

Chandrayaan-1 aims to achieve its objectives through high-resolution remote sensing of moon in the visible, near infrared, microwave and X-ray regions. Finally, the preparation of a 3-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface and chemical and mineralogical mapping of entire lunar surface is envisaged.

The instruments that will perform these tasks are (1 through 5 are from India, the remaining are from international partners):

1. Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC), a CCD camera that maps the topography of the moon, which helps in better understanding of the lunar evolution process.
2. Hyperspectral Imager (HySI), another CCD camera, is designed for mapping of the minerals on the lunar surface as well as for understanding the mineralogical composition of Moon’s interior.
3. Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) provides necessary data for accurately determining the height of lunar surface features.
4. High Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX) is designed to help explore the possibility of identifying Polar Regions covered by thick water-ice deposits as well as in identifying regions of high Uranium and Thorium concentrations.
5. Moon Impact Probe (MIP) demonstrates the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon. It is also intended to qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions.
6. Chandrayaan-1 Imaging X ray Spectrometer (C1XS), an ESA payload and jointly developed by Rutherford Appleton Laboratory of England and ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, intends is to carry out high quality mapping of the moon using X-ray fluorescence technique for finding the presnce of Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon, Iron and Titanium distributed over the surface of the Moon.
7. Smart Near Infrared Spectrometer (SIR-2), another ESA payload, developed by Max Plank Institute of Germany, aims to study the lunar surface to explore the mineral resources and the formation of its surface features.
8. Sub kiloelectronvolt Atom Reflecting Analyser (SAR), the third payload from ESA, is built by Swedish Institute of Space Physics and Space Physics Laboratory of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Tiruvananthapuram. The aim of this instrument is to study the surface composition of the moon and the magnetic anomalies associated with the surface of the moon.
9. Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM), a payload developed by Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, aims to characterise the radiation environment in a region of space surrounding the moon.
10. Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR) is one of the two scientific instruments from the USA and is from Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Naval Air Warfare Centre, USA through NASA. MiniSAR is mainly intended for detecting water ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles up to a depth of a few meters.
11. Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) is an imaging spectrometer from Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the US through NASA, is intended to assess and map lunar mineral resources at high spatial and spectral resolution.

The event has generated interest worldwide, and has been widely reported in the international press:

• The Indian Express (IN)
• New York Times (US)
• BBC News (UK)
• Spiegel (DE)
• Dagbladet (NO)
• Lunar Explorers Society (INT)

All the components of the Constellation program has been designed to be as reliable and cheap as possible, while still being able to transport both astronauts and large quantities of material too the Moon. The complexity of this project is enormous, and I have been following it with great interest the last few years. Unfortunately the Ares I rocket and the Orion capsule, together tasked with bringing humans from Earth to space, has encountered several problems this year.

• Funding: NASA wanted to try to close the gap between the last shuttle flight and the first Ares I flight, but this is not likely to happen due to budget cuts. This means that we most likely will have to wait until 2015 before we see the first Ares I launch.
• Performance: The Ares I performance numbers have been changed several times since the project started, resulting in forced mass savings for the Orion capsule.
• Thrust Oscillations: Vibration problems due to thrust oscillations in the first stage of Ares I. The thrust oscillations were initially reported to be very severe, but NASA says they can handle the problem.
• Deadline slips: The Orion PDR deadline has slipped several times due to a variety of reasons.
• Subcontractor problems: ATK and USA fought over contract issues related to the work on Ares I for while, and USA even suspended all Ares I related work for a while. Luckily these problems have recently been solved.

All programs of such a complexity level will of course run into problems every now and then, but it looks like the tendency for Ares I is negative. NASA and the subcontractors really need to sit down and get their bearings straight with this project, otherwise the delays will result in massive cost overruns, and possible delays in other parts of the Constellation program.