Chandrayaan-1 shifted to 2nd orbit, condition healthy: ISRO

“The first orbit-raising maneuvers of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was performed at 09:00 hrs IST on October 23, 2008 when the spacecraft’s 440 Newton Liquid Engine was fired for about 18 minutes,” said ISRO officials on Thursday.

The commands for the orbit raising maneuvers were sent to the spacecraft from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network center at Peenya in Bangalore.

“With this engine firing, Chandrayaan-1’s apogee (furthest point from earth) has been raised to 37,900 km, while its perigee (nearest point) has been raised a little, to 305 km,” an ISRO statement said.

In its current orbit, the spacecraft will take about 11 hours to go once around the earth. When launched on Wednesday PSLV-XL put the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in an elliptical orbit with a perigee of 255 km and an apogee of 22,860 km – orbiting the earth once in about six and a half hours.

Both the Space Control Centre and the Deep Space Network (DSN) at Bylalu outside Bangalore have tracked the spacecraft, received signals and sent commands to the spacecraft which is in a healthy condition, ISRO said.

The spacecraft will lock in on the moon’s orbit on November 8 at the point of intersection with Chandrayaan-1’s orbit after further intermediate orbit changing moves.

“The major maneuver of the mission, called lunar orbit insertion leading to lunar capture is carried out at the peri-selene (nearest point to the moon) part of the spacecraft’s trajectory,” ISRO has stated.