The Indian Space research organisation ISRO said on Tuesday that they will release the data collected by Chandrayaan-2, India’s second Mission to the Moon in October. Chandrayaan 2 completed one year in the moon’s orbit on Tuesday (21st July), reported Swarajya.
This mission was helmed by ISRO’s Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) satellite, which was nicknamed Baahubali, because of the fact that the the rocket carried the 3.8-tonne Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. This was launched in July 2019 from ISRO’s launch pad at Sriharikota.
Ever since its launch, Chandrayaan 2 had been extensively collecting data of the moon, which have been recorded by the payload scientists at ISRO. The parameters of the data garnered are being derived by ISRO for the presence of water-ice in the polar regions, X-ray based and infrared spectroscopic mineral information, and mid and high-latitude presence of Argon-40 gas which is a condensable gas released internally by the moon due to radioactive decay.
The report on major findings from Chandrayaan-2 experiments was planned to be released at the Annual Lunar Planetary Science Conference in March 2020, however, it has been cancelled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The Business Standard reported that Public release of science data from Chandrayaan-2 for global use will begin in October 2020, wherein details for accessing the data will be provided, said ISRO.