Chandrayaan-1 enters lunar orbit successfully
{image-lunar orbit_08112008.jpg news.oneindia.in}New Delhi, Nov 8: The country's ambitious unmanned moon mission Chandrayaan-1 entered the lunar orbit on Saturday, Nov 8. It is now 504 km from Moon. ISRO says the most critical operation is successful.
However, by Tuesday, Nov 11 it will cruise closer to the moon when it makes the transition from the earth's elliptical orbit into deeper space, a top space agency official said. "The liquid apogee motor (LAM) on board will be fired around 5 am on Tuesday, Nov 8 for about five minutes to make the transition and position the spacecraft at about 500 km from the moon's surface and over 384,000 km away from the earth," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S Satish said. The complex manoeuvres will be carried out from the spacecraft's control room at ISRO's telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac) in coordination with its deep space network (DSN) at Byalalu, about 40 km from Bangalore.
"Additional
velocity
will
be
given
to
the
spacecraft
to
enter
the
lunar
orbit
Saturday
(November
8)
for
a
rendezvous
with
the
moon.
With
calibrated
firing
of
its
LAMs,
it
will
be
inserted
into
its
designated
orbit,
which
will
be
about
100
km
from
the
lunar
surface,"
Satish
said.
Chandrayaan-1 has been spinning around the earth in an elliptical orbit at 267,000 km apogee (farthest from earth) and 465 km perigee (nearest to earth) since October 29.
"In the present orbit, Chandrayaan has taken six days to go round the earth once. The spacecraft performance is being monitored closely and its health parameters are normal," Satish added. Chandrayaan carries 11 scientific instruments, including six foreign payloads - two from the US, three from the European Space Agency (ESA) and one from Bulgaria. The other five are indigenously designed and developed by various centres of the state-run ISRO.
The spacecraft was launched October 22 on board the 316-tonne polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C11) from the Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota spaceport off the Andhra Pradesh coast, about 80 km north of Tamil Nadu capital Chennai.
OneIndia News