The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that Chandrayaan-3, India's ambitious third moon mission, has successfully entered lunar orbit. According to the space agency, the necessary manoeuvre was carried out from an ISRO site in Bengaluru.
"Chandrayaan-3 has been successfully inserted into the lunar orbit. A retro-burning at the Perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network), Bengaluru," the agency said in a tweet. ISRO also shared a message about its achievement from the satellite to its centres: "MOX, ISTRAC, this is Chandrayaan-3. I am feeling lunar gravity."
If the rest of the current mission goes to plan, the mission will safely touch down near the Moon's little-explored South Pole between August 23 and 24. Since its launch on July 14, ISRO has been lifting the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into orbits farther and farther away from Earth. Meanwhile, ISRO released the first images of Moon as viewed by Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.