CLASS onboard Chandrayaan-2: Five years around the Moon

Abstract

Chandrayaan-2 Large Area soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS) is a remote X-ray Fluorescence experiment to map the lunar surface elemental abundances. With its large effective area and low energy threshold, CLASS generates the highest spatial resolution maps of all major rock-forming elements on the Moon, such as Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, and Fe. Five years of operation in lunar orbit has resulted in global coverage. With several lunar missions planned for this decade for in situ exploration and sample returns, the 15×15 km geochemical maps from CLASS will serve as an important dataset. This article highlights the scientific results of CLASS in the last five years and discusses its potential applications. © Indian Academy of Sciences 2025.