From Alejandra Diaz Gil.
India has launched its first lunar mission, with hopes of achieving high-resolution images of the moon's topography. The two-year mission seeks high-resolution imaging of the moon's surface, especially the permanently shadowed polar regions. It will also search for evidence of water or ice and attempt to identify the chemical breakdown of certain lunar rocks.
The goal of this mission is also to “probe the physical characteristics of the lunar surface in greater depth than previous missions by other nations." Said the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) but the true reasons could be to look for mineral samples from the moon contained Helium 3, a variant of the gas used in refrigerators, and also look out for the gas which experts believe may offer a solution to energy shortage, among many other economical reasons.
India's Moon program is directly linked with Russia. Last year, the two countries signed an agreement on a joint lunar expedition in 2011-2012. This time a space ship consisting of two modules will fly to the Moon. The first module will stay in lunar orbit, while the second one will make a soft landing. A lunar rover will roll out of it to collect data on the Moon's mineral resources.
Recently China and Japan, also put lunar orbiters in place. China launched its mission on October 24, 2007, just weeks after Japan launched another orbiter.
All this developing countries are now diving into the international space race, they know it can be an useful source of energy and that will be a key point to determine their eventual power.
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