Chandrayaan-2 launch successful, 'Bahubali' GSLV-Mk-3 places payload in GTO precisely

New Delhi, July 22: ISRO chief Dr K Sivan on Monday confirmed that the GSLV-Mk-3 launch vehicle injected the spacecraft which carries orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) sucessfully in the Geosynchronous Trasfer Orbit (GTO) sucessfully. With this, the Chandrayaan-2's launch phase has been successfully accomplished.

After the mission control announced that the spacecraft has been seperated from the launch vehicle, Dr Sivan got up from his seat to confirm the signal from satellite which would technically confirm that it was in the right orbit. He waited for a few seconds, and a wide smile broke out on his determined face. He hugged the ISRO engineers near him and walked up to the podium.

"GSLV-Mk-3 has placed the satellite in Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit successfully. It is the beginning of a historic journey of India towards moon and to land at a place near South Pole to carry out scientific experiments," said ISRO chief Dr K Sivan.

ISRO control room erupted with claps when signal from satellite was received.

Sivan heaped praise on scientists who fixed the glitch due to which July15 launch was cancelled. He said the glitch was fixed in 24 hours.

"After it was cancelled, everyone was determined to fixed it. Scientists forgot their families and worked to fix the fault which was done in just 24 hours. Remaining days were used to carryout checks," he said.

" We fixed the snag and bounced back with flying colours. The work done in the next 24 hours after the snag was mind boggling. Corrections were made, tests were done and confirmed. This was made possible by the experts and it is my duty to salute them," he added.

He said the entire team would now wait for orbital manouvers which will take spacecraft closer to the moon.

"Task is not over. Next challenge is to land the lander Vikram on moon surface," he added.

He finally congratulated all those involved in the mission and ended his brief speech with "Jai Hind".

GSLV-Mk-III blasted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) precisely at 2.43 pm with 3290 kilograms payload. It injected the spacecraft into GTO about 16 minutes later.

ISRO had last week called off the launch with just 56 minutes of the countdown left, a decision that was later hailed by space experts as a prudent measure not to risk the mission.

About 16.20 minutes after the lift-off, the GSLV rocket placed Chandrayaan-2 into 170 km x 39059 kms Earth orbit. From here onwards, the mission will undergo a series of manoeuvres by scientists to carry out different phases of the mission over the next 48 days. Subsequent to the rescheduling of the launch, the space agency has tweaked the orbital phases, increasing Earth-bound phase to 23 days as against 17 days planned originally.

At the end of the Earth-bound phase, the orbit of the spacecraft will be finally raised to over 1.05 lakh km before nudging it into the Lunar Transfer Trajectory taking it to the proximity of Moon in the next two days. Then gradually over the next few days it will be brought to 100 X 100 km circular orbit when the lander will separate and after another few days of orbiting it will make a soft landing at a chosen place on the Lunar surface.