Chandrayaan-3 leaves Earth's orbit, now headed for the moon, says ISRO

Chandrayaan-3 successfully completed its fifth orbit-raising manoeuvre on August 1 and is now headed for the moon for the next phase of the mission

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon on July 14. The Chandrayaan-3 successfully completed its fifth orbit-raising manoeuvre, on Tuesday, August 1, starting its 3.8 lakh-km-long  journey towards the moon. 

The Lunar-Orbit Insertion (LOI) is planned for August 5, according to ISRO.

The Indian space agency on Monday announced that India’s premier space probe had successfully completed its final orbit around the earth, and was now headed for the moon, for the next phase of the mission.

ISRO is attempting to make a soft landing of the lander on the lunar surface of the Moon on August 23.

ISRO tweeted on Monday night about Chandrayaan-3 leaving Earth’s orbit and wrote, "Chandrayaan-3 completes its orbit around the Earth and heads towards the Moon. 

A successful perigee-firing performed at ISTRAC, ISRO has injected the spacecraft into the translunar orbit.

Next stop: the Moon

As it arrives at the moon, the Lunar-Orbit Insertion (LOI) is planned for Aug 5, 2023."

Chandrayaan-3, which is a follow- up mission of Chandrayaan-2, aims to show end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface. The spacecraft has a lander and rover configuration carrying a propulsion module till a 100 km lunar orbit.

The ambitious Chandrayaan-3 mission aims to help science and technology research into understanding the moon and its resources. The Chandrayaan-3 carries several scientific instruments to study the lunar surface, such as the thermophysical properties of the lunar regolith, lunar seismicity, the lunar surface plasma environment, and the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site on the Moon.

According to the ISRI mission brochure released ahead of the Chandrayaan-3 launch, the propulsion module has ‘Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE)’ that will help study the spectral and Polari metric measurement of Earth from lunar orbit.