Salem/Namakkal (Tamil Nadu): In order to test the Chandrayaan-2 lander, ISRO recreated lunar surface from the lunar soil available in Tamil Nadu at its facility in Challakere Science City, Bengaluru.
'Anorthosite' rock which is closest to lunar soil composition and features are found in Siddampoondi and Kunnamalai villages in Namakkal district.
The quest to find lunar soil was thrown up as an alternative to the costly simulated lunar soil which the ISRO had to purchase from the US at a cost of 150 USD per kilo.
To test Chandrayan 2 lander, the simulated Lunar Terrain Test Facility (LTTF) required at least 60-70 tonnes. The geologists from premier institutes finally zeroed in on Tamil Nadu.
During a span of six months, Prof. Dr S. Anbazhagan, Director, Centre for Geoinformatics and Planetary Studies, Periyar University, said several tonnes of earth was mined and moved to the testing facility to carry out the analogue studies on Chandrayan 2 lander.
Delving deep into the details of the properties, Anbazhagan said that the soil's micro grain size was almost similar to the actual lunar topsoil.
"The soil has the mineral properties similar to the lunar topsoil besides exhibiting similar chemical properties of the lunar topsoil," he noted.
The soil testing has been patented as well. Anbazhagan's team and his research students are furthering their path of finding rocks on earth which are similar to lunar rocks and identifying the same using remote sensing.
Also read: How different is Chandrayaan-2 from Chandrayaan-1?
