Why Chandrayaan-1 mission was so poor in images?



Lunar polar region seen by Chandrayaan 1

India, is well known for the Chandrayaan 1 mission from October 2008. But I cant find to many high resolution pictures from the Chandrayaan 1 to the Moon. Why?

I think because NASA is involved, and the images are hidden from public eyes. Or are indians that stingy to not show us all images?

 

When Chandrayaan 1 left the Earth, i thought, OMG, i will see HD movies and high resolution pictures, more sharper and clearer than those from NASA. But when i came back later to see what Chandrayaan 1 did, all i saw where 10 pictures and some HD movies on Youtube from a high altitude.

 

It had been said that Govt. spend just 500 crore indian rupees on this mission and this is much less money for a better mission.

 

Data collected throughout the 10 month long mission is analysed by NASA through their instruments installed on Chandrayaan 1. They could even control and collect anonimous data from the spacecraft! Nasa analysed data from their spectroscopic instruments aboard and found watery ice.

 

Over 80000 images are said to be taken by the spacecraft, according to public announcement by ISRO heads and only some are available for the public. They may be in the hands of NASA. They took all the authority over this mission . This may be because they gave great technical support. Infact, without the support from NASA and Russia, the mission would be of no use.

 

 Maybe we could expect something more on the next Moon mission- chandrayaan 2 , a robotic mission that would land on surface, collect and analyze Moon rocks. Chandrayaan 2, will not be launched in the near future. ISRO is busy on their presigious first mars orbiter mission , formerly called Mangalyaan, which would be launching very soon . Everything is ready for that.

Posted in: Astronomy Questions and Answers