Besides the flight, a Space Mission is actually about Sensors, to ‘feel’ and measure what a computerised system can understand, study and report.
ISRO has eight scientific instruments (sensors) for the Orbiter, four for the Lander Vikram, and two for the Rover Pragyan.
In addition, there is a small laser retroreflector from NASA which has gone as a lander payload to measure the distance between the satellites above and the microreflector on the lunar surface.
The Pragyan rover has two instruments to determine the abundance of any elements near the landing site. Amongst them one is a Laser induced Spectroscope (and the other is an Alpha Particle Induced X-ray Spectroscope (APXS).
The Lander is fitted with solar panels as a source for energy generation. It has a sensor to study Lunar ionosphere and Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical experiment to measure temperature gradient and thermal conductivity on the Lunar surface. In addition, there is an instrument for measurement of Lunar Seismic Activity is a tri-axial seismometer to measure Lunar quakes.
The Orbiter, which is known as such, has very important instruments onboard. Some of them are for understanding the geology and mineralogy mapping. Some of them would be used for identifying the nature of water available on the moon’s surface. Then, there is also a senor for studying electron density in the Lunar ionosphere
