Chennai: The third orbit raising activity for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft has been performed successfully at 3.12 pm Monday, the Indian space agency said.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the orbit of the Chandrayaan-2 was raised to 276 x 71,792 km by firing the onboard motors for 989 seconds. All spacecraft parameters are normal, it said.
The fourth orbit raising manoeuvre is scheduled between 2 to 3 pm August 2. The Chandrayaan-2 July 22 was injected into an elliptical orbit of 170×45,475 km by India’s heavy lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) in a text book style.
The spacecraft comprises three segments — the Orbiter (weighing 2,379 kg, eight payloads), the lander ‘Vikram’ (1,471 kg, four payloads) and rover ‘Pragyan’ (27 kg, two payloads).
The Indian space agency said the major activities include earth-bound manoeuvres, the trans-lunar insertion, lunar-bound manoeuvres, Vikram’s separation from Chandrayaan-2 and touch down on the moon’s South Pole. The ISRO said the trans-lunar insertion of Chandrayaan-2, which will send it to the moon, is scheduled August 14.
After that, the Chandrayaan-2 is scheduled to reach moon by August 20 and the lander Vikram will land on the Earth’s sole satellite September 7.