Chandrayaan-2 reaches Moon's orbit, just about two weeks away from landing

India's second Moon Mission, Chandrayaan-2, successfully entered the lunar orbit on Tuesday morning in a significant milestone that brings India closer to joining select nations that have explored the moon. Isro Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan had earlier described this event as a major challenge.


Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) manoeuvre was completed successfully today (August 20, 2019) at 0902 hrs IST, as planned, using the on-board propulsion system. The duration of the manoeuvre was 1,738 seconds. With this, Chandrayaan-2 was successfully inserted into a Lunar orbit. The orbit achieved was 114 km x 18,072 km.


The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) fired the spacecraft's liquid engine for a short while and placed it on a lunar bound orbit. From here, the spacecraft is scheduled to go through four more orbit manoeuvres to reach its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.


Subsequently, the lander will separate from the Orbiter and enter into a 100 km X 30 km orbit around the Moon. Then, it will perform a series of complex braking manoeuvres to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon on September 7, 2019. Readmore