Heena Sharma Blog

In a significant milestone for India's Moon mission , ISRO will fire Chandrayaan 2 's liquid engine on Tuesday to insert the spacecraft into a lunar orbit. "It's tomorrow morning (tentatively between 8.30 am and 9.30 am). It's challenging," Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation K Sivan told PTI on Monday on the operation to put the spacecraft in an orbit around the Moon. Following this, there will be further four orbit manoeuvres to make the spacecraft enter into its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from Moon's surface, ISRO has said. Subsequently, the Vikram lander will separate from the orbiter on September 2, according to the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency. Two orbit manoeuvres will be performed on the lander before the initiation of powered descent to make a soft landing on the lunar surface on September 7, ISRO said. Chandrayaan 2, launched on July 22 by GSLV MkIII-M1 vehicle, had ent...

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) successfully conducted the second Earth-bound orbit raising maneuver for the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. Isro officials said that second maneuver has been performed successfully on Friday at 0108 hours (IST) as planned, using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of 883 seconds. The orbit achieved was 251 x 54829 km. All spacecraft parameters were normal. The third orbit raising maneuver is scheduled on July 29, 2019, between 1430–1530 hours (IST). India's second mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-2, is expected to reach the Moon on August 20, 2019. The first earth-bound orbit raising maneuver for Chandrayaan-2 was performed successfully on July 24, 2019, at 1452 hours (IST) as planned. Between July 26 and August 8, four Earth-bound maneuvers have been planned, culminating in Trans Lunar Insertion on August 14, which will send Chandrayaan-2 to the Moon. On July 22, at 2.43 pm, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch ...

India's second Moon mission that is planned for a July launch will have 13 payloads and one passive experiment from American space agency NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Wednesday. "Thirteen Indian payloads (8 on orbiter, 3 on lander and 2 on rover) and one passive experiment from NASA," ISRO said in a mission update, but did not specify them or their objective. The spacecraft with a mass of 3.8 tonnes has three modules--Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). All the modules are getting ready for Chandrayaan-2 launch during the window of July 9 to July 16, 2019, with an expected Moon landing on September 6, the space agency had said earlier this month. The orbiter will orbit 100 km from the lunar surface, while lander (Vikram) will do the soft landing near the south pole of moon, and Rover (Pragyan) will conduct in-situ experiments. The orbiter and lander modules will be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an ...