BENGALURU, Sept 3:
The orbit of Chandrayaan-2’s landing module ‘Vikram’ was successfully lowered for the first time on Tuesday and one final manoeuvre remained for India to pull off a historic soft-landing on the moon in the early hours of Saturday.
The 4-second de-orbiting operation was undertaken a day after the indigenously developed lander was separated from Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter in a major milestone pushing India’s second lunar mission into its last and most crucial leg–a controlled, soft-landing on the Moon
The propulsion system on-board the lander was fired for the first time to lower its orbit after it started orbiting the moon independently, said the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO).
So far, all operations in the journey to the moon were carried out by the main orbiter of the 3,840-kg Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft that was launched into the earth’s orbit on July 22 by the country’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV MkIII-M1.
The ISRO will perform one more de-orbiting manoeuvre on Wednesday, before the powered descent of ‘Vikram’ on September 7 for its landing in the lunar south pole.
A successful landing will make India the fourth country after Russia, the US and China to achieve a soft landing on the moon. But it will be the first to launch a mission to the unexplored south pole of the Moon.
“The first de-orbiting manoeuvre for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was performed successfully today (September 03, 2019) beginning at 0850 hrs IST as planned, using the onboard propulsion system. The duration of the manoeuvre was 4 seconds,” the ISRO said giving the latest update on the Rs 978 crore Chandrayaan-2 mission.
“The orbit of ‘Vikram’ Lander is 104 km x 128 km. Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in the existing orbit and both the Orbiter and Lander are healthy,” it said, adding that the second and final manoeuvre to further lower the orbit is scheduled on September 4 between 3.30 and 4.30 am IST. (PTI)
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