Chandrayaan-3 launch.
Photo: ANI
Expansion
Not only the sons of the soil of Tamil Nadu, former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Chandrayaan-2 Mission Director Mayilsamy Annadurai and Chandrayaan-3 Project Director Veeramuthuvel P have contributed to ISRO’s mission, but in fact the soil of the state has also contributed Is. Namakkal, about 400 km from Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai, has supplied soil to ISRO since 2012 to test the capability of the Chandrayaan mission, as the district’s soil is similar to the lunar surface.
Namakkal has enabled ISRO to test and improve the capability of the lander module for soft landing on the lunar surface, as the soil properties of Namakkal are similar to those of the Moon. So, if Chandrayaan-3’s lander module successfully accomplishes its objective of soft landing on the Moon, it will give Tamil Nadu an extra reason to cheer. This is the third time that Tamil Nadu has supplied the required soil to the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency for testing its ambitious moon missions.
According to Professor S Anbazhagan, Director, Department of Geology, Periyar University, such soil was available in abundance in the Namakkal region, which helped ISRO to exploit the opportunity when needed. We are engaged in doing research in geology. Tamil Nadu has the kind of soil that is present on the surface of the Moon, specifically it is similar to the soil at the south pole of the Moon. The surface of the Moon is made up of ‘anorthosite’ (a type of intrusive igneous rock) type of soil. He said in a brief conversation with the news agency PTI that soon after the announcement of the Moon exploration program, we are sending soil to ISRO.