Chandrayaan-1 in lunar orbit says PTI News

Bangalore/Gandhinagar, Nov 4 (PTI) India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft--Chandrayaan-1--entered the lunar space early today after a successful fifth and final orbit raising manoeuvre and is likely to start circling the moon by Saturday. The satellite is now orbiting at a maximum altitude of 380,000 kms from earth.

Exactly two weeks after it was launched from Sriharikota, the spacecraft was in the last lap of its journey into the moon's orbit after it was injected into the lunar transfer trajectory by space scientists in a critical operation described by ISRO as one of the "crucial and important milestones" in the Chandrayaan-1 mission.

"It (Chandrayaan-1) is being tracked by Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore. Today we have done the last orbit-raising manoeuvre to enter the lunar transfer trajectory. If everything goes right, by November 8, Chandrayaan-1 will start circling the moon," Nair told reporters in Ahmedabad on the sidelines of a function here.

Chandrayaan-1 entered the lunar transfer trajectory with an apogee(farthest point from earth) of about 380,000 km, the space agency said in a statement.

"On Saturday evening, the lunar orbit insertion manoeuvres are planned to be carried out and the Chandrayaan will be captured in Moon's orbit," ISRO spokesperson S Satish told PTI in Bangalore.

During the crucial manoeuvre today at 4.56 am, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for 145 seconds.

Since its launch on October 22 by PSLV-C11, all systems onboard Chandrayaan-I spacecraft are performing normally, Nair said. PTI

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