Chandrayaan 2 reaches Moon's orbit, is just days away from landing

The development is a significant milestone that brings India closer to joining a select group of nations that have explored the moon.

Business Standard : India's second Moon Mission, Chandrayaan 2, successfully entered the lunar orbit on Tuesday morning in a significant milestone that brings India closer to joining select nations that have explored the moon. Isro Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan had earlier described this event as a major challenge.

Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) manoeuvre was completed successfully today (August 20, 2019) at 0902 hrs IST, as planned, using the on-board propulsion system. The duration of the manoeuvre was 1,738 seconds. With this, Chandrayaan-2 was successfully inserted into a Lunar orbit. The orbit achieved was 114 km x 18,072 km.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) fired the spacecraft's liquid engine for a short while and placed it on a lunar bound orbit. From here, the spacecraft is scheduled to go through four more orbit manoeuvres to reach its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.

Subsequently, the lander will separate from the Orbiter and enter into a 100 km X 30 km orbit around the Moon. Then, it will perform a series of complex braking manoeuvres to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon on September 7, 2019.

Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to soft land the lander Vikram, and rover Pragyan, in a high plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of about 70° south. The mission has 13 Indian payloads, including eight on Orbiter, three on lander and two on rover, and one passive experiment from US space agency NASA.

The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Bylalu, near Bengaluru. All the systems of Chandrayaan-2 are healthy.

The next Lunar bound orbit manoeuvre is scheduled tomorrow (August 21, 2019) between 1230 and 13:30 hrs IST.

Chandrayaan-2's 384,000 km journey started on July 22 after the GSLV MkIII-M1 vehicle lifted off from Isro's spaceport at Sriharikota, near Chennai.

According to the tentative schedule that Isro released recently, the final manoeuver is expected to take place between 6 and 7 p.m. on September 1. From here, the lander named Vikram, carrying the rover called Pragyaan, will separate from the orbit on September 2.