���Ի徱��’s first uncrewed lunar probe, Chandrayaan, is experiencing the hottest temperatures it has yet faced and is taking a “summer break” – using its instruments sparingly until mid-January to get through the hot patch.

Chandrayaan is currently over the sunlit side of the moon, a place where spacecraft are expected to heat up because they receive energy directly from the Sun as well as infrared radiation given off by the Moon. The Moon radiates heat because it also receives energy from the Sun.

Chandrayaan project director told ��è����Ƶ: “It is local summer for the satellite.” The spacecraft is currently facing external temperatures of 100 °C, and cooling systems aim to maintain the spacecraft’s interior at around 40 °C. When the craft passes by the dark side of the Moon external temperatures will fall to as low as -100 °C.

Still, the (ISRO) is working in unknown territory, on its first mission operating outside the Earth’s orbit.

“The thermal environment is very demanding. I think it somewhat surprised ISRO,” observes , scientist at the Houston-based . He adds that “they have ways to mitigate the issue, so I do not see this as a big problem.”

Spudis is also principal investigator on a project using a mini radar set-up on the craft that aims to look for ice at the lunar poles.

Spark risk

Annadurai says the spacecraft systems are designed to withstand different temperature ranges depending on their use and exposure to radiation. For example, solar panels that supply power to the spacecraft can withstand from minus to plus 120 °C. Others, like its infrared detector can only handle up to 50 °C.

Nine of the 11 instruments on-board Chandrayaan have now been switched on for calibration and simple health checks.

The spacecraft’s temperature is expected to stabilise by the end of December. Until then, scientists will use one instrument at a time, as required, but will be able to operate all instruments simultaneously by mid-January.

One of the instruments yet to be switched on is the Swedish sub-atomic reflecting analyser (SARA), which will image the Moon’s permanently shadowed polar regions. The other is the Indian X-ray spectrometer, HEX, which will study radioactive emissions from the lunar surface.

Both are scheduled to be switched on later in the year, once ISRO can be sure every last trace of Earth atmosphere trapped at launch has trickled out of Chandrayaan.

“[These devices use] high voltage, which when switched on too early [when atmosphere remains] will cause sparks, which damage the instrument,” says Christian Erd, Chandrayaan project manager at the European Space Agency. A wait of three weeks or more is usual to be certain of a safe vacuum inside a craft, he says.

���Ի徱��’s Chandrayaan spacecraft is set to eject a television-sized probe that will crash onto the lunar surface on Friday. The probe will make observations as it descends, testing systems needed to land future robotic spacecraft on the Moon.

Chandrayaan, which launched on 22 October, has been travelling on an elongated path around the Moon since it went into orbit there on Saturday. But engine firings on Tuesday and Wednesday should move the craft into a circular orbit that brings it just 100 km from the surface.

After letting the spacecraft circle the Moon for two days, mission planners will release the 29-kilogram (MIP) on Friday evening India time. Scheduled to hit the surface near the south pole, it is not designed to survive the impact.

The probe, which was built by the (ISRO), will take 20 minutes to descend to the surface.

During that time, it will film the surface with an onboard video camera, says T K Alex, director of ISRO’s Satellite Centre (ISAC) in Bangalore.

Soft landings

An altimeter will measure the probe’s height as it nosedives, helping to test technologies needed to make ‘soft’ landings on the Moon. ���Ի徱��’s next lunar mission, scheduled for 2010, involves not only an orbiter but also a Russian-built lander that will study samples of lunar soil.

“I think the main purpose [of the Moon Impact Probe] is preparations for future soft landings,” says Christian Erd, mission project manager at the European Space Agency in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. “It is a demonstration of the separation mechanism and getting to the surface.”

The probe will also carry a mass spectrometer that will measure traces of gas and dust floating above the Moon. Signals from all three onboard instruments will be relayed back to the spacecraft and from there to ground stations on Earth.

Dust plume

“It is a sort of mini-satellite, equipped with its own instruments, batteries, and telemetry,” says Rajagopal Sreedharan, head of the space physics laboratory at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), which built the six Indian instruments onboard Chandrayaan.

MIP will strike the surface near the lunar south pole, a region that shows hints of water ice in the soil. Parts of the terrain there also receive near-constant sunlight, providing prime spots to set up future solar power stations.

“We are impacting the Moon’s south pole because of the huge amount of interest in the region,” he told ��è����Ƶ.

When the probe hits the surface, it is expected to kick up a huge amount of dust that will be analysed by instruments on the Chandrayaan orbiter.

On Wednesday, ISRO is set to launch an uncrewed spacecraft to map the Moon in more detail than ever before – a far cry from ISRO’s beginnings in the 1960s, with a church in Kerala as their first office.

���Ի徱��’s maiden Moon mission Chandrayaan may have cost less than other countries’ lunar missions – $80 million as opposed to $140 million for the European Space Agency’s SMART-1 – but its aims are no less ambitious.

“For the first time, we hope to have a comprehensive mapping of the entire Moon,” says ISRO scientist Parameswaran Sreekumar.

The spacecraft, designed and built in India, will carry various instruments from around the world: for example, a radar made in the US will image the permanently shadowed regions of the poles to locate ice.

And upgraded versions of two spectrometers used in SMART-I will gather clues on the origin and evolution of the lunar crust. The maps will be invaluable for the crewed Moon mission that India is planning for 2014 or 2015.

Some Indian development policy analysts question whether the money might be better spent on tackling ���Ի徱��’s myriad social needs.

“They asked the same question when we built our first satellite, Aryabhatta, in the ’70s,” notes Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan project director.

“ISRO has done fairly good work in using space for societal needs. Today we have satellites for education, crop, health and communications,” Annadurai says. “Chandrayaan is today’s equivalent of Aryabhatta.”

���Ի徱��’s 1970 patent law recognised only patents on processes, not products. This enabled Indian firms to use alternative methods to produce cheap “generic” copies of drugs that were patented in other countries. Multinational companies that spend billions of dollars in research and development complain these “copycat” drugs cause annual losses of over $500 million.

But after joining the World Trade Organization in 1995, India had to change its patent laws by 1 January 2005 to meet its commitments under the WTO’s agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The new bill, finally passed by the Indian Parliament on 23 March, now recognises both product and process patents.

The government argues this will boost Indian pharmaceutical research, attract foreign collaboration and help the nation emerge as a force in global pharmaceuticals.

Research rising

There are already “winds of change in India”, notes Raghunath Mashelkar, director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in India. There has been a 400% increase in private research and development spending on drugs and pharmaceuticals in the four years to 2005, he told ��è����Ƶ.

The number of pharmaceutical patents filed by Indians under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) – a global system for simplified multiple filing of patent applications – has also increased, from 43 in 1999 to 291 in 2003.

But some private and public sector scientists warn of a scarcity of trained pharmacologists, few successes in identifying new candidate drugs and a lack of high-quality animal testing facilities.

The Indian pharmaceutical industry’s reaction has been mixed. Big Indian firms welcomed the changes, but small and medium companies have criticised the grey areas.

These include ambiguous definitions of what can be patented and a weak framework for opposing grants before they are approved. Mashelkar says an expert committee will now look into the exact criteria for inventiveness and patenting.

Stringency and flexibility

The new law attempted to find a balance between stringency – desired by multinational drug firms – and flexibility – demanded by public health campaigners. The latter argue the bill is stricter than required and ignores the flexibilities under TRIPS intended to safeguard public health in emergencies. Indian firms will now have to wait for three years before they can apply for compulsory licensing of newly patented drugs to meet an emergency need.

There are also over 8000 product patent applications pending in India, which could now be granted. If so, Indian firms currently making generic versions of these drugs would have to pay royalties.

International humanitarian agencies fear this will lead to a price monopoly, increasing charges. Of particular concern are anti-HIV drugs. Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) says half of the 700,000 HIV-positive people who currently receive anti-retroviral drugs in the developing world depend on Indian generics. It cautions the new bill may “drastically restrict, perhaps even prevent” the supply to developing countries.

Indian public health experts fear the changes will worsen access to medicines in India itself. Government data shows the number of Indians unable to afford medical treatment rose sharply from 10% to 25% in the decade up to 1999. “More poor people will stop going for treatment,” says Ritu Priya, at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Indian authorities launched an investigation in October when historians reported that the Taj Mahal was leaning and in danger of sinking.

But the four Taj minarets were observed to be inclined at various angles by the Archaeological Survey of ���Ի徱��’s (ASI’s) first scientific survey in 1941, which examined the position and verticality of the minarets as well as the foundations’ stability.

That first report noted that three minarets tilted by 1.5 to 3.0 inches (3.8 to 7.6 centimetres), while the fourth southwest-facing minaret was tilted by 8.5 inches (21.6 cms).

It concluded that the tilts were either part of the original design – to prevent all the minarets from crashing in on the main dome in an earthquake – or the result of some sub-soil displacement and settlement centuries ago, Doraiswamy Dayalan, Superintendent (Archaeology) at ASI, Agra, told ��è����Ƶ.

The report found no cracks at the minarets’ base or their 300-metre-long plinth, but recommended regular four-yearly surveys to check on them.

Urgent attention

A survey by ASI and UNESCO in 1985 found the tilt in each minaret had increased by 0.1 inches (0.3 cms). But Dayalan says this was considered “statistically insignificant” and a possible error in measuring the 40-metre-high minarets.

No structural damage was detected during two other major surveys in 1991 and 1995. Apart from its regular surveys every four years, the ASI does not plan a separate survey of the 350-year-old marble monument in Agra, says ASI director general Babu Rajeev.

But the ASI is at odds with some Indian historians who fear the southwest minaret is tilting dangerously.

While Babu Rajeev asserts “the Taj is in excellent shape”, Agam Mathur, a historian and former vice chancellor of Agra University and Ram Nath, former historian at Rajasthan University, insist the tilts need urgent attention.

Water worries

Mathur also fears that the drying up of the river Yamuna – on whose banks the Taj was built – has led to its sinking on its northern side, which is now 1.44 inches (3.7 cms) lower than the southern side.

The monument’s foundations lie on huge wooden slabs over deep wells, says Mathur. The structure was designed in accordance with the continual flow of water against its northern wall, he adds, and as the river dries the northern side is sinking.

Dayalan disagrees, saying none of the routine studies since 1941 – which include foundation checks for recent displacements and settlements, load misbalance due to stress compression, structural defects, and cracks in the base – indicate a shift in the plinth.

He adds that the wells lie only beneath the northern side of the plinth and were in fact designed to keep the water away from the foundations.

The most recent survey on the Taj was done by ASI and Survey of India in 2000-2001 and found no structural changes.

India launched the $20 million, 2-tonne EDUSAT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal. The satellite is the heaviest ever launched by an Indian-made rocket – the new Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which cost $33 million.

About 35% of the country’s billion-plus population are illiterate, a 2001 government census showed. “India will require 10,000 new schools each year and meeting the teaching needs on such a scale [by conventional methods] will be impossible,” Madhavan Nair, chairman of ISRO, told ��è����Ƶ.

To date, India has used both of its multi-purpose INSAT satellites to provide long-distance education information alongside their telecommunications, broadcasting and weather-forecasting functions.

Virtual classrooms

But EDUSAT’s dedicated function will substantially improve the service provided. It will use the virtual classroom concept to offer education to children in remote villages, quality higher education to students in areas without access to good technical institutes, adult literacy programmes and training modules for teachers.

“It is a unique mission and we are happy to have achieved it,” Nair says. H P Dixit, vice chancellor of Indira Gandhi Open University, added: “It will revolutionise education in our country.”

EDUSAT carries six KU-band transponders and six extended C-band transponders. All but one of the KU-band transponders will be dedicated to specific regions of India, while the rest of the transponders will provide blanket coverage for the country.

The satellite will utilise an antenna with a 1.2-metre reflector to direct the KU-band spot beams towards their intended regions. This will enable information to be broadcast in relevant local languages – India has 18 official languages and over 400 dialects. The educational programmes can be viewed on any television set through a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65, Nair says.

Operational phases

Once EDUSAT is commissioned in two months’ time it will initially provide one satellite link per beam, with each link catering for up to 200 classrooms. When fully operational, 25 to 30 satellite links will broadcast to about 5000 remote terminals.

Monday’s launch marks several firsts for ���Ի徱��’s space programme, says Nair. EDUSAT is ���Ի徱��’s first satellite dedicated for education. Others being planned include AGRISAT, to address the country’s agricultural needs, and HEALTHSAT, for providing telemedicine services.

It is also GSLV’s first operational flight. India will no longer depend on Europe’s Ariane rockets to launch satellites of up to 2 tonnes, though it will continue to use them for heavier spacecraft.

However, archaeologists and historians are divided over whether the scientific work will provide clinching evidence or fuel further controversy. A group of historians said this week the excavation was “an invitation to mischief”, as it may spur the demand for further digs. They also feared that hurrying the excavations -they have a deadline of one month – may destroy invaluable material.

The 15-strong team began work following a court order on 5 March to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to present its report within a month. Irfan Habib, the former Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, says “rigorous, scientific and impartial excavations” are needed, but notes that the ASI has not been headed by a professional archaeologist for a decade.

The worst day in the long Ayodhya dispute was on 6 December 1992 when Hindu extremists demolished the 16^th century Babri Masjid mosque. They claimed it is built over the ruins of a temple that marked the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram. The demolition sparked religious riots across the country, leaving more than 2000 dead, and is widely viewed as a black day for secular India.

Pillar formations

The arguments for the existence of a temple put forward by right-wing Hindu groups are based largely on undocumented claims made by former ASI director General Braj Basi Lal. He says evidence of underground “pillar formations” was found in the 1980s.

But several Indian experts argue the pillar debris cannot be traced to any definite structure. “They belong to different structural phases and cannot belong to any one structure at any one time”, says K M Shrimali, a historian at the University of Delhi.

The controversy was further fuelled by a recent ground penetrating radar survey (GPR) by a Delhi-based firm Tojo-Vikas International conducted between December 2002 and January 2003. The survey was commissioned by ASI, despite Tojo-Vikas having no experience of archaeological surveys.

Sources told ��è����Ƶ that the subsurface reflections collected during the survey contained “anomalies” typical of the radar signature of a pillar. But the survey report notes that GPR has its “inherent limitations”, and anomalies could result from boulders or building debris.

Past archaeological excavations in Ayodhya have thrown up a range of items ranging from terracotta balls, wheels and discs, to beads of copper, crystal and glass and bones.