India's maiden unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 on Wednesday reached its final orbital home, about 100 kms over the moon surface after ISRO scientists successfully carried out the last critical orbit lowering operation.

The satellite will remain in the present operational orbit for about two years carrying a range of experiments.

The final 60-second manoeuver carried out from a ground station in Bangalore put the satellite into the intended orbit, exactly three weeks after it began its voyage to the outer space after it blasted off atop a polar rocket from Sriharikota spaceport.

"The journey part to the Moon is complete," Project Director M Annadurai said signalling the successful completion of the mission to take Chandrayaan-1 to its intended orbit.

"We are eagerly awaiting the start of the experiments."

ISRO said the next major event of Chandrayaan-1 is the release of Moon Impact Probe (MIP) from the spacecraft and its eventual hitting of the Moon's surface. This is expected to happen on Friday and scientists hope to get the first signals in about 20 minutes after the MIP hits the lunar surface.

The entry of Chandrayaan-I into the final lunar orbit followed a series of three orbit reduction manoeuvers conducted during the past three days by repeatedly firing the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine, the Bangalore-headquarted space agency said in a statement.

As part of these manoeuvres, the engine was fired for a cumulative duration of about 16 minutes.

With this, ISRO said, the carefully planned complex sequence of operations to carry Chandrayaan-1 from its initial Earth orbit to its intended operational lunar orbit with the use of its liquid engine has been successfully completed.

... contd.