Mission Output

All these three states have already finished their first phase of experimentation, and few results are available in public domain. Japan has released a global lunar topographic map with a spatial resolution finer than 0.5° derived using data from the laser altimeter (LALT) onboard the Japanese lunar explorer Kaguya. India has also released many pictures taken by its craft of the surface of the Moon from various angles. All these images indicate that in comparison with the previous information available, this new set of information reveals unbiased lunar topography for scales finer than a few hundred kilometres. Also, the Japanese mission has revealed few interesting details about the volcanic activity on the Moon and new revelations about the far-side gravity field of the Moon.[244]

One of the greatest contributions of Chandrayaan-1 mission was the role it played towards discovering the water signature on the Moon surface in collaboration with NASA. Chandrayaan-1 also confirmed presence of iron in the lunar soil. The mission has successfully gathered data for a total of 30 solar flares apart from helping the manning of three-dimensional topography of the Moon.[245]

These three states have perhaps released the selective information to the outside world so far. Also, it would take some time to decipher the data received. In certain cases, they are also probably waiting for the confirmation of their assessment from the experts. It is difficult to judge at this point in time as to how much information would be made available for public consumption by these three states.