Chandrayaan orbit raised, satellite health normal: Isro

A day after its flawless launch, India’s Chandrayaan-I steadily made its journey to the moon after the first orbit-raising manoeuvre of the lunar spacecraft was today successfully performed by scientists.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said the satellite’s health was normal and it was on the right track.

In the first of the five orbit raising manoeuvres, today’s operation was performed at 9 am when the satellite’s 440 Newton Liquid Engine was fired for about 18 minutes by commanding the spacecraft from Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) at Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore.

The operation was done some 26 hours after the 1,300-kg spacecraft was successfully put into its intended orbit by the Polar satellite Launch Vehicle—PSLV-C11.

“With this engine firing, Chandrayaan-I’s apogee (farthest point to earth) has been raised to 37,900 km, while its perigee (closest point to earth) has been raised a little, to 305 km,” the space agency said in a statement.

“In this orbit, Chandrayaan-I spacecraft takes about 11 hours to go round the earth once.”

“All systems onboard the spacecraft are functioning normally. Further orbit raising manoeuvres are planned in the coming days,” Isro said.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre Director K Radhakrishnan Nair said in Thiruvananthapuram that Chandrayaan-I’s journey was progressing well and all parameters were functioning well.

The launch vehicle placed Chandrayaan-I in an elliptical orbit with a perigee of 255 km and apogee of 22,860 km. In this initial orbit, Chandrayaan-I orbited the earth once in about six and a half hours.

Following its successful launch, the SCC acquired the first signals and conducted preliminary operations on Chandrayaan-I. The Deep Space Network at Byalalu, near here, tracked the spacecraft in this orbit and received signals in S and X band and has sent commands to the spacecraft.