Chandrayaan-2 enters new lunar orbit

ISRO confirmed in a tweet that India's second moon mission Chandrayaan 2 has successfully completed another lunar-bound manoeuvre and has entered into a new orbit around Moon.

Karnataka:The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) confirmed that India's second moon mission Chandrayaan 2 has successfully completed another lunar-bound manoeuvre and has entered into a new orbit around Moon.

After performing second lunar bound orbit maneuver on August 21, ISRO had released two sets of pictures of the moon captured by the spacecraft. There will be two more orbit manoeuvres to make the spacecraft enter into its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.

ISRO has said that the lander would subsequently separate from the Orbiter (on September 2) and enter into a 100 km X 30 km orbit around the Moon. Then it would perform a series of complex braking manoeuvers to soft-land in the South polar region of the Moon on September 7, 2019.

"The maneuver for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was performed successfully beginning at 9.04am as planned, using the on board propulsion system. The duration of the maneuver was 1,190 seconds.

The orbit achieved "179km x 1411 km (nearest x farthest distance) elliptical orbit" and ISRO has said that all parameters of the spacecraft seem to be healthy.

The next manoeuvre in lunar orbit is scheduled for August 30 following by the Vikram lander's pre-landing manoeuver on September 1 and separation on 2 September.

The mission life of the lander is also one lunar day, while the orbiter would continue its mission for a year. The orbiter carries eight scientific payloads for mapping the lunar surface and study the exosphere (outer atmosphere) of the Moon while the lander carries three scientific payloads to conduct surface and subsurface science experiments.

The rover carries two payloads to enhance the understanding of the lunar surface. India's second lunar expedition - would shed light on a completely unexplored section of the Moon, its South Polar region.

According to ISRO, the mission objective of Chandrayaan-2 is to develop and demonstrate the key technologies for end-to-end lunar mission capability, including soft-landing and roving on the lunar surface.

On the science front, this mission aims to further expand the knowledge about the moon through a detailed study of its topography, mineralogy, surface chemical composition, thermo-physical characteristics and atmosphere, leading to a better understanding of the origin and evolution of the moon,
the space agency had said.

Chandrayaan 2 is expected to make its long-awaited powered descent and landing on 7 September at 1.40 am IST in a landing sequence that the ISRO Chief describes as '15 minutes of terror'.

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