‘Spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 To Reach Moon By Aug 20’

Chennai: India’s second moon spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 put into earth orbit on July 22, is scheduled to reach the Moon by August 20, the Indian space agency said on Wednesday. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that the first-earth bound orbit raising manoeuvre for Chandryaan-2 was successfully performed on Wednesday afternoon by firing the onboard motors for 57 seconds. The new orbit is 230x45,163 km. The second orbit raising manoeuvre is scheduled on July 26, at 1.09 a.m., it added.

On July 22, the Chandrayaan-2 was injected into an elliptical orbit of 170x45,475 km by India’s heavy-lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) in a textbook style. Chandrayaan-2 comprises three segments - the Orbiter (weighing 2,379 kg, eight payloads), the lander ‘Vikram’ (1,471 kg, four payloads) and rover ‘Pragyan’ (27 kg, two payloads).

Originally the GSLV-Mk III rocket carrying Chandrayaan-2 was supposed to fly on July 15. Owing to a serious technical glitch, the flight was postponed to July 22. As a result, there are changes in the mission schedule. As per the July 15 flight schedule, Chandrayaan-2’s earth bound phase was 17 days and it is 23 days as per the new schedule. (IANS)

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