Second orbit raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft performed: ISRO

The second earth-bound orbit raising manoeuvre for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was performed in the early hours of Friday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.

The manoeuvre was carried out at 1.08 am using the on-board propulsion system for a firing duration of 883 seconds, the space agency said in a statement.

With this effort, the spacecraft was pushed to an orbit of 251 X 54,829 km, it said.

ISRO announced that all the parameters of the spacecraft were normal.

The third orbit raising manoeuvre will be performed on July 29 afternoon.

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The ambitious project of sending a spacecraft with a moonlander and a rover was launched on July 22 afternoon.

The ISRO is aiming for a soft landing of the lander (spacecraft) in the South Pole region of the moon where no country has gone so far.

The earth-bound manoeuvres had started from July 24 and it will culminate into Trans Lunar Insertion, scheduled on August 14, 2019, which will send the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to the moon.

If successful, it will make India the fourth country after Russia, the US and China to pull off a soft landing on the moon.  

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