Chandrayaan-2 has been precisely injected into the lunar orbit and has been hailed as a major landmark by ISRO chief K Sivan. On August 19, at 3 pm, Chandrayaan-2 entered the moon's influence and has since been under the gravitational influence of the moon
Bengaluru: Dr K Sivan, chief of ISRO spoke about Chandrayaan’s milestone. He said that it was precisely injected to achieve a soft landing near the South Pole and has crossed a major milestone.
Sivan addressed a press conference over Chandrayaan-2 and said, "The spacecraft reached a major milestone today. The manoeuvre took around 30 minutes and was put in a defined orbit in the perfect manner, now it will be going around the moon with an inclination of 88 degrees."
He further added that in due course this orbit will be brought down and at that time the inclination will achieve 90 degrees.
Talking about the tricky nature of the operation, Dr Sivan explained, "A higher-than-expected approach velocity would have bounced off the spacecraft into deep space, while a slow approach would have led to the moon's gravity to pull Chandrayaan-2 and crash it on the lunar surface. The approach velocity had to be just right and the altitude over the moon rather precise. Even a small error or discrepancy in the angle would have killed the mission."
Furthermore, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is going to have four more manoeuvres and through this, the orbit will be reduced. On September 2, the lander will be separated from the orbiter.
After the launch of the mission on July 22, five earth bound orbits took place, said Sivan adding that on August 14, at 2:21 am, a very important manoeuvre happened. “On 19th August around 2 pm the moon also got near the mission and then it entered the orbit,” Sivan said.
On September 4, ISRO will conduct the real manoeuvres of the lander for about six seconds. For three days they will check the systems and on September 7, the lander will begin propulsion.
Two hours after this the ramp will touch the ground and 3.10 hours later the solar panel will be deployed and then the rover will start from the lander and then at four hours the rover will touch the surface.
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