ISRO seeks scientific proposals for Chandrayaan-2 orbiter data analysis

The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is currently in a circular polar orbit covering 10,000 sq km around the Moon. (File)

The Indian Space Research Organisation has notified an ‘Announcement of Opportunity’ and sought proposals for scientific analysis of data from the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter experiments.

ISRO said Indian researchers extensively used the Chandrayaan-1 data to understand lunar morphology, composition of the lunar surface, surface age determination, studies on the likely presence of magmatic and exogenic water.

The space agency said these studies had given enhanced views on the lunar evolutionary processes, adding that studies from Chandrayaan-1 considerably expanded the Indian lunar science community.

ISRO said it had made available the payload data from the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter to further strengthen Indian research on lunar science and sought proposals for scientific analysis.

The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is currently in a circular polar orbit covering 10,000 sq km around the Moon. The orbiter is conducting eight experiments to study aspects such as the Moon’s surface geology and composition to the exospheric measurements. ISRO hopes these studies would build on the understanding from previous missions.

ISRO released to the public payloads data from the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter for scientific analysis on December 24, 2020. Subsequently in July, it released the next set of payload data. A few studies based on the payload data by science teams have already been published in peer-reviewed, international journals.

The payloads of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter are generating high-quality data. The public are being granted access to this data for scientific analysis, the Bengaluru-based space agency said. It added more data sets would be added as and when acquired by various payloads.

ISRO said it was seeking proposals from the country’s scientific community through the ‘Announcement of Opportunity’ to enhance the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter payloads’ science outcome for scientific analysis and utilisation.

Researchers from academic institutions, planetariums, colleges, universities, and government organisations were all eligible for the ‘Announcement of Opportunity’, the space agency said.