NEW DELHI, Aug 5: India’s ambitious third moon mission, Chandrayaan-3 was successfully inserted into the lunar orbit on Saturday. The required manoeuvre was done from the ISRO facility in Bengaluru, the ISRO informed in a tweet.
“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.
Perilune is the spacecraft’s closest point to the moon. The next operation – reduction of orbit – will be done at 11 PM on Sunday, ISRO added.
ISRO also shared a message from the satellite to its centres, which read,”MOX, ISTRAC, this is Chandrayaan-3. I am feeling lunar gravity.” Over five moves in the three weeks since the launch on July 14, ISRO has been lifting the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into orbits farther and farther away from the Earth.
Then, on August 1 in a key manoeuver — a slingshot move — the craft was sent successfully towards the Moon from Earth’s orbit. Following this trans-lunar injection, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft escaped from orbiting the Earth and began following a path that would take it to the vicinity of the moon.
(Manas Dasgupta)