India’s third Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-3 has
moved even closer to the moon’s surface.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday afternoon
successfully performed yet another crucial manoeuvre to further reduce the
Orbit of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and took it even closer to the moon’s
surface.
The second operation to further reduce the orbit was performed between
1300 and 1400 hrs.
In a tweet, ISRO said “Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Even closer to the moon’s
surface.”
“Chandrayaan-3’s orbit is reduced to 174 km x 1437 km following a manuevre
performed today”, it said.
“The next operation is scheduled for August 14, 2023, between 11:30 and
12:30 Hrs. IST”, ISRO added.
After the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was injected into the Lunar
Orbit on August 5, it had successfully underwent the planned Orbit
reduction manoeuver late on Sunday night.
The retrofiring of engines has brought the spacecraft closer to the
Moon’s surface to 170 X 4313 km.
This maneuver was the first in a series of maneuvers planned to
gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3’s Orbit and position it over the
Lunar poles.
The Lunar bound orbit maneuver was performed between 2230 hrs
and 2330 hrs on Sunday night.
“As the mission progresses, a series of maneuvers have been planned
to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3’s orbit and position it over the lunar
poles”, ISRO said.
After some maneuvers, the propulsion module will separate from the
lander while in orbit. Following that, a series of complex braking
maneuvers will be executed to facilitate a soft landing in the hitherto
unexplored South Polar region of the Moon on August 23.
The Space Agency said the health of Chandrayaan-3 is normal.
“Throughout the mission, the health of the spacecraft is being
continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX)
at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC), the
Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antenna at Byalalu, near
Bengaluru, with the support from European Space Agency (ESA)
and JPL Deep space antenna.
