TeamIndus Z-01 Moon Mission
Privately funded lunar landing mission
TeamIndus will launch its spacecraft to the Moon in 2020.
Mission Profile
The spacecraft will approach the Moon in a Lunar Transfer Trajectory (LTT) which takes 4–5 days for the spacecraft to reach the Moon. After spending some time in lunar orbit, the spacecraft will land on the lunar surface.
Efficient orbit design allows us to optimize the spacecraft’s mass for maximum payload delivery to the lunar surface, while maximizing the surface operations duration. The mission will span over 35 days, with at least 12 Earth days of continuous operations on the lunar surface.
Landing site
The chosen landing site for the Z-01 mission is 29.52° N, 25.68 °W, near Annegrit crater, in the vast lava plains of Mare Imbrium.
Autonomous soft landing
The entire landing process will be completely autonomous. The lander has built-in hazard avoidance capabilities and can execute soft-landing with an accuracy of 1 km (3-sigma) about the chosen landing site. The structure is designed to survive the impact forces on landing while being lightweight and robust.
Mission Elements
A. Spacecraft/Lunar Lander
The Z-01 spacecraft has multi-terrain landing capabilities and the operational elements (like solar panels’ placement) are optimized for the landing site.
The lander has a net payload capacity of 40 kg that can be deployed into lunar orbit or the surface. The surface payloads benefit from a high throughput payload downlink capability of up to 1 Mbps.
B. Exploratory Platforms
ECA is our micro-class exploration rover designed to explore the lunar surface.
Hazard avoidance cameras, sun sensors and the onboard IMU allow for enhanced navigational capabilities. ECA will capture HD stereoscopic images and near real-time videos to beam them back to Earth via the lander.
The lander will also deploy another rover to the lunar surface; ispace’s micro-class rover Hakuto.
C. Payloads
Three science experiments are onboard the spacecraft. INFN has their MoonLIGHT-2 instrument that will use lunar ranging techniques to perform General Relativity tests. The Indian Institute of Astrophysics has their LUCI ultra-violet telescope onboard, while the InSTEM institute has an experiment studying regeneration of planarial worms in microgravity.
