The spacecraft is supposed to make five such orbit-raising manoeuvres to continuously move into higher orbits before beginning to move directly towards the moon.
Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has now moved into a new, higher orbit around the Earth after the successful completion of the second orbit-raising manoeuvre, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said Monday.
Hoping to make a soft landing on the moon’s surface next month, Chandrayaan-3 is now going around the Earth in an elliptical orbit that is 41,603 km at its furthest and 226 km at the closest from the Earth’s surface, ISRO said in an official statement.
The second orbit-raising step took place at around noon on Monday. Before this, the spacecraft was moving in an orbit that was 41,762 at the furthest from Earth and 173 km at its closest.
The next orbit raising manoeuvre, the third one, is slated to take place between 2 and 3 pm on Tuesday, ISRO said.
The spacecraft is supposed to make five such orbit-raising manoeuvres to continuously move into higher orbits before beginning to move directly towards the moon.
Once there, the spacecraft would do similar exercises to slowly get into lower orbits around the moon before eventually reaching a circular orbit about 100 km from the lunar surface. From the particular circular orbit, the final descent to the moon’s surface would take place on August 23 or 24.
Chandrayaan-3 is taking a circuitous route in its journey, rather than travelling directly to the moon, in order to economise the entire travel. Direct travel to the moon, which takes about four days, would require much heavier rockets, and a huge amount of fuel, to leave the space further into space.
Instead, Chandrayaan-3 was taken to a near-earth orbit, from where it has been utilising the force of gravity to gain momentum, and then fire thrusters to accelerate and reach a higher orbit. This process involves the burning of a much lesser amount of fuel but takes a longer time to reach the moon.
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