Chandrayaan-1 successfully injected to lunar orbit

Bangalore, Nov 8 (UNI) The country's ambitious unmanned moon mission Chandrayaan-1 was today successfully injected into the lunar orbit by the Indian Space Research Organisation scientists at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) based in the city this evening.

"Today we successfully fired the onboard motors on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to inject it to the 7500 km by 500 km elliptical orbit around the moon. It is now captured by the gravity of the moon. This marks the most crucial maneuver since its launch," ISRO spokesperson S Satish told UNI.

The lunar orbit insertion (LOI) began at 4.50 PM this evening and went on for 817 seconds. The spacecraft is in good health and sending signals to the earth stations, he added.

The spacecraft was launched from ISRO's spaceport Sriharikota on October 22 and as planned it was shifted to the moon orbit today.

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