Chandrayaan takes another step: Isro pushes space craft to lunar trajectory

Nellore: Chandrayaan-2 left the embrace of earth and entered the lunar transfer trajectory (LTT) before dawn on Wednesday. After 23 days of its launch, Isro scientists fired the rockets on board Chandrayaan-2 for 1,203 seconds, or about 20 minutes, for the ‘trans lunar injection’, pushing the spacecraft on its long way to the moon.

Chandrayaan-2 will approach the moon on August 20, and the spacecraft’s liquid-fuel engine will be fired again to insert the spacecraft into a lunar orbit.

Following this, there will be four more manoeuvre as Chandrayaan-2 settles into its final lunar orbit, passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the moon’s surface.

The Vikram lander will separate from the orbiter on September 2.

Two more manoeuvre will be performed before it begins its powered descent to make a soft landing on September 7. The lander will land on the moon on September 7. Following this, the rover Pragyaan will roll out on the lunar surface.

The lander and the rover will perform experiments for 15 earth days, which is the equivalent of a lunar day.

The orbiter carries eight payloads to map the lunar surface and study the lunar atmosphere. Pragyaan carries three scientific payloads.

Chandrayaan-2 is being monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at the Isro Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu, near Bengaluru. All systems are functioning normally, Isro said.

No country has so far made controlled landing in the moon’s polar regions. If successful, India will be the fourth country after Russia, the US and China to pull off a soft landing on the moon.

Earlier, the orbit of Chandrayaan-2 was progressively increased five times from July 23 to August 06 after its launch on July 22.