No danger to ISRO from spy scientist

Information inside a computer located at the Data Centre is well-protected

Taking part in an interactive programme organised in the City on Thursday to launch a book penned by space journalist Srinivas Laxman on India’s moon mission, ‘Moonshot India’, Dr Alex said that Nozette had visited ISRO campus more than once under a strict protocol for any foreign visitor.

On the possibility of the arrested scientist having access to the data collected by Chandrayaan, the director said, “The data inside a computer located at the Data Centre (inside ISRO) and is well-protected.” It will be made public a few months later, he added.

Man to moon’s orbit

Regarding India’s capability to send a man to the moon, Alex said that the country would be able to send a man to the lower orbit of the moon by 2015 or 2016. “It is a much bigger technological challenge to send a man to the moon and it requires a very large rocket. It can be done sometime in future but it is very difficult to fix a time frame for it,” Dr Alex said.

Chandrayaan-II

India would be in a position to launch Chandrayaan-II by the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013. While the first mission identified minerals, the second one will make an analysis of the components of the minerals, he said.

Earlier, in his speech, Alex said that the data collected by India’s first moon mission was on a vast scale and ran into terabytes (1024 gigabytes). “It would take upto ten years to even take a quick look at it,” he said.

Dr M Annandurai, Chandrayaan’s Project Director, said that India was in a position to send a mission to Mars sometime in future. “New proven technology and much technological upgradation are required for it,” he said.