The Indian Space Research Organisation on Sunday took to microblogging site ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter to share the FIRST images of Moon as captured by Chandrayaan-3. India’s third unmanned Moon mission Chandrayaan-3 on Saturday successfully entered the lunar orbit, 22 days after it was launched for a far more complicated 41-day voyage to reach the lunar south pole where no other nation has gone before.
“The Moon, as viewed by Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft during Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) on August 5, 2023,” tweeted the Mission’s official Twitter handle.
On Saturday, Chandrayaan-3 had sent a message to ISRO saying ‘I feel the lunar gravity’ after it had entered the lunar orbit.
“I am feeling lunar gravity,” was Chandrayaan-3’s message to the ISRO after the required maneuver that brought it closer to the moon was carried out without any glitch from the space facility in Bengaluru. The injection into the lunar orbit marked a major milestone in the space agency’s ambitious ₹600 crore mission.
The next operation–reduction of orbit–will be done at 11 PM on Sunday, the ISRO said in a tweet.
After the Sunday maneuver of Chandrayaan-3, there will be three more operations till August 17 following which the Landing Module Vikram carrying the rover Pragyan inside will break away from the Propulsion Module. After this, de-orbiting maneuvers will be carried on the lander before the final powered descent on the moon.
The spacecraft has covered about two-thirds of the distance to the Moon since its launch on July 14 and the next 18 days will be crucial for the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO).
The Moon mission has been smooth so far and the ISRO expects the Vikram lander to make a soft landing on the lunar surface later this month on August 23.
The injection into the lunar orbit marked a major milestone in the space agency’s ambitious ₹ 600 crore Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission.
(With agency inputs)
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Updated: 06 Aug 2023, 10:31 PM IST