India launches first Moon mission

India has successfully launched its first mission to the Moon.

The unmanned Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft blasted off smoothly from a launch pad in southern Andhra Pradesh to embark on a two-year mission of exploration.

The robotic probe will orbit the Moon, compiling a 3-D atlas of the lunar surface and mapping the distribution of elements and minerals.

The launch is regarded as a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with other space-faring nations in Asia.

It was greeted with applause by scientists gathered at the site.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says there has been a lot of excitement about the event, which was broadcast live on national TV.

Competitive mission

An Indian-built launcher carrying the one-and-a-half-tonne satellite blasted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at about 0620 local time (0050 GMT).

One key objective will be to search for surface or sub-surface water-ice on the Moon, especially at the poles.

Another will be to detect Helium 3, an isotope which is rare on Earth, but is sought to power nuclear fusion and could be a valuable source of energy in future.

Powered by a single solar panel generating about 700 Watts, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) probe carries five Indian-built instruments and six that are foreign-built.

The mission is expected to cost 3.8bn rupees (£45m; $78m).

The Indian experiments include a 30kg probe that will be released from the mothership to slam into the lunar surface.

The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) will record video footage on the way down and measure the composition of the Moon's tenuous atmosphere.

"Chandrayaan has a very competitive set of instruments... it will certainly do good science," said Barry Kellett, project scientist on the C1XS instrument, which was built at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory in the UK.

C1XS will map the abundance of different elements in the lunar crust to help answer key questions about the origin and evolution of Earth's only natural satellite.

Researchers say the relative abundances of magnesium and iron in lunar rocks could help confirm whether the Moon was once covered by a molten, magma ocean.

"The iron should have sunk [in the magma ocean], whereas the magnesium should have floated," Mr Kellett told BBC News.

"The ratio of magnesium to iron for the whole Moon tells you to what extent the Moon melted and what it did after it formed."

The instrument will look for more unusual elements on the Moon's surface, such as titanium. This metallic element has been found in lunar meteorites, but scientists know little about its distribution in the lunar crust.

Chandrayaan will also investigate the differences between the Moon's near side and its far side. The far side is both more heavily cratered and different in composition to the one facing Earth.