Chennai: India’s third Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-3 on Monday commenced the Orbit circularisation phase after its orbit was reduced for the third time.
After today’s precise maneuvre performed between 1130hrs & 1230hrs it has achieved a near-circular orbit of 150- km x 177 km.
The next Operation is planned on Wednesday when the the propulsion module will separate from the lander ahead of the soft landing on the South pole region of the moon on August 23 evening.
In an update ISRO said “Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Orbit circularisation phase commences.
“Precise maneuvre performed today has achieved a near-circular orbit of 150 km x 177 km”.
The next operation is planned for August 16, 2023, around 0830 hrs, it said.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had on August 9 successfully performed the second crucial maneuvre to further reduce the Orbit of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and took it even closer to the moon’s surface.
After the second operation, the orbit of Chandrayaan-3’s was reduced to 174 km x 1437 km and was taken further closer to the moon, it said.
After the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was injected into the Lunar Orbit on August 5, it had successfully underwent the first planned Orbit reduction manoeuver late on night of April 6.
The retrofiring of engines has brought the spacecraft closer to the Moon’s surface to 170 X 4313 km.
This maneuver was the first in a series of maneuvers planned to gradually reduce Chandrayaan-3’s Orbit and position it over the Lunar poles.
“As the mission progressed, a series of maneuvers were done to to gradually reduce the Chandrayaan-3’s orbit and position it over the lunar poles”, ISRO said.
After some maneuvers, the propulsion module will separate from the lander while in orbit. Following that, a series of complex braking maneuvers will be executed to facilitate a soft landing in the hitherto unexplored South Polar region of the Moon on August 23.
The Space Agency said the health of Chandrayaan-3 is normal. “Throughout the mission, the health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC), the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antenna at Byalalu, near Bengaluru, with the support from European Space Agency (ESA) and JPL Deep space antenna.
