India’s Moon mission ‘Chandrayaan-3’ has reached closer to the Moon’s surface. Another successful descent into orbit was completed on Monday.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) based in Bengaluru said that Chandrayaan-3 has now reached the ‘closest orbit’ of the Moon.
‘Chandrayaan-3’ was launched on July 14 and entered the Moon’s orbit on August 5.
After this, on August 6 and 9, two procedures to bring Chandrayaan down in orbit were carried out. ISRO tweeted, The process of bringing Chandrayaan closer to the lunar surface has begun.
After the process done today, the orbit of Chandrayaan-3 has reduced to 150 km x 177 km. He said that the next procedure is planned to be carried out on August 16 at around 8.30 am. ISRO gradually started lowering the orbit of Chandrayaan-3 as the mission progressed and carried out the procedures to bring it closer to the lunar pole.
According to ISRO sources, another maneuver will be carried out to raise the spacecraft to an orbit of 100 km after which the ‘Landing Module’ consisting of the Lander and the Rover will be separated from the ‘Propulsion Module’ as part of the further process.
Thereafter, the lander is expected to undergo a ‘deboost’ and make a ‘soft landing’ on the Moon’s south polar region on August 23.
Chandrayaan-3 mission may reach the lunar surface later than the Russian ‘Luna-25’ mission.
The reason for this is that Chandrayaan-3 is traveling a longer route than the ‘Luna-25’ mission.
Actually Chandrayaan-3 wants to take advantage of the gravity of Earth and Moon through its journey. From that it will travel on much less fuel.
