Chandrayaan-2 completes final milestone before Moon landing

Wednesday 04th September 2019 06:17 EDT
 

The Chandrayaan- 2 spacecraft underwent a small, fifth and final orbit manoeuvre to refine its circular path around the moon. Vikram, the lander and Pragyan (rover), sitting inside Vikram, successfully separated from the orbiter in less than a minute at 1.15 pm taking India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission into its last and most crucial leg: a soft, controlled landing on Moon. With all spacecraft parameters normal, the lunar orbiter-lander now has an orbit of 119 km x 127 km.

“Today’s operation was great in the sense that we were able to separate the lander and rover from the orbiter. It is the first time in the history of Isro that we’ve separated two modules in space. This was very critical and we did it very meticulously,” Isro chairman K Sivan said after the separation.

Next, after two de-orbit manoeuvres, Vikram is scheduled to touch down on the unexplored southern region of the moon between 1.30 am and 2.30 am on September 7. Isro had earlier announced it would touch lunar soil at 1.55 am. “We are looking at starting the powered descent at 1.40 am or 1.45 am and the landing should be 15 minutes after that,” Sivan explained.

“The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in its existing orbit. The health of the orbiter and lander are being monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at the Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Bylalu, near Bengaluru,” Isro said.


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