Chandrayaan 1 within 500 km of the moon

Chandrayaan 1 - India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft, moved closer to the moon today, when it broke free from it elliptical orbit around the earth, speeding into deep space towards the moon. This was disclosed by a top space agency official.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) director S. Satish told IANS yesterday, "The liquid apogee motor (LAM) on board will be fired around 5.00 a.m. Tuesday for about five minutes to make the transition and position the spacecraft at about 500 km from the moon's surface and over 3,84,000 km away from the earth."

These complex maneuvers were carried out from the spacecraft's control room at ISRO's telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac) in coordination with the deep space network (DSN) at Byalalu, which is about 40 km from Bangalore.

"Additional velocity will be given to the spacecraft to enter the lunar orbit Saturday (Nov 8) for a rendezvous with the moon. With calibrated firing of its LAMs, it will be inserted into its designated orbit, which will be about 100 km from the lunar surface.

In the present orbit, Chandrayaan has taken six days to go round the earth once. The spacecraft performance is being monitored closely and its health parameters are normal," said Mr. Satish.

As you may all be aware, Chandrayaan-1 has been orbiting the earth in an elliptical orbit at 2,67,000 km apogee (farthest point from earth) and 465 km perigee (nearest point to earth) since 29 October.

It was launched on 22 October on board the 316-tonne PSLV-C11 from Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota spaceport off the Andhra Pradesh coast, 80 km north of Chennai. We will keep you posted for more news about the Chandrayaan, so keep watching this space.