India’s third Moon mission’s ‘Chandrayaan-3’ spacecraft was successfully inserted into the lunar orbit on Saturday, ISRO said.
The required manoeuvre was done from an ISRO facility.
Basically, a retro-burning at the Perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network), Bengaluru,
Worth mentioning, Perilune is the spacecraft’s closest point to the moon.
According to ISRO, there will be four more Moon-bound manoeuvres till August 17, to bring the
As of now, the spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit around the moon, that is 18,074 km from the lunar surface at its farthest and 164 km at the nearest.
This orbit altitude would be lowered progressively over the next few days, ultimately achieving a circular orbit of 100 km x 100 km, from which a final descent on the lunar surface is planned around August 23.
Worth mentioning that as of now the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has covered about two-thirds of the distance to the moon.
The next operation to further reduce the orbit is scheduled for August 9, 2023, between 13:00 and 14:00 Hrs. IST.
