Chandrayaan-2 completes fourth orbit raising maneuver successfully

New Delhi, Aug 02: ISRO's ambitious Chandrayaan-2 performed its fourth earth-bound maneuver and moved another step closer to the Moon on Friday.

With this maneuver, the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft moved from 276 x 71792 km orbit around the earth to 277 x 89472 km. The last Earth bound maneuver is planned on August 6, 2019.

These step-by step maneuvers are aimed at steadily increasing the spacecraft's altitude until Earth's gravitational force becomes weaker and the moon's influence can begin to take over.

"Fourth earth bound orbit raising maneuver for Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft has been performed today (August 2, 2019) at 1527 hrs (IST) as planned," ISRO tweeted.

The third orbit raising manoeuvre was performed on July 29 afternoon. The ambitious project of sending a spacecraft with a moonlander and a rover was launched on July 22 afternoon.

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Last week, the mission successfully completed its second earthbound orbit-raising manoeuvre on July 26, 2019 at 0108 hrs (IST) as planned, using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of 883 seconds.

If Chandrayaan-2 is successful, India will be the fourth country after the U.S., China, and the Soviet Union to complete a soft landing on the moon.

On July 22, the Chandrayaan 2 was injected into an elliptical orbit of 170x45,475 km by India's heavy-lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) with a textbook precision.