First Indian lunar mission and X-ray spectrometry

Chandrayaan-1 is the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) mission to the moon, with the main scientific objectives of photo-selenological and chemical mapping of the lunar surface. It was successfully launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on October 22^nd, 2008. The total mission is expected to last for two years. One of the most important activities is X-ray measurements by the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray spectrometer (C1XS). The primary goal of the C1XS instrument is to carry out high-quality X-ray spectroscopic mapping of the Moon, in order to constrain solutions to key questions on the origin and evolution of the Moon. C1XS will use X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (1.0-10 keV) to measure the elemental abundance, and map the distribution, of the three main rock-forming elements: Mg, Al and Si. To record the incident solar X-ray flux at the Moon, which is needed to derive absolute lunar elemental surface abundances, C1XS also includes an X-ray Solar Monitor (XSM), which is provided through collaboration between the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) and University of Helsinki. With its wide field-of-view of ± 52 degrees, XSM provides observation of the solar X-ray spectrum from 1-20 keV with good energy resolution and fast spectral sampling at 16 s intervals. The total mass of C1XS and XSM is 5.2 kg. For more information about Chandrayaan-1, visit the Web page, http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/Home.htm Wikipedia gives further info as well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1