PM congratulates scientist for successful injection of Chandrayaan-1

Muscat, Nov 8 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today congratulated Indian Space Research Organisation scientists for successfully injecting Chandrayaan-1 into lunar orbit.

Dr Singh, who is presently on a two-day visit to Oman, lauded the efforts of the ISRO scientists.

The lunar orbit insertion (LOI) began at 1650 hrs and went on for 817 seconds. The spacecraft is reportedly in good health and sending signals to the earth stations.

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

The highly complex ''lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre'' was performed from Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft Control Centre ISTRAC.

ISDN has already tracked the spacecraft and the pictures sent by it have been processed at ISTRAC.

Chandrayaan-1's liquid engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an orbit around the moon.

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