Friday, March 13, 2009

Chandrayan

Chandrayaan-1 was launched on 22 October 2008 at 6.22 am IST from Satish Dhawan Space Centre using ISRO's 44.4 metre tall four-stage PSLV launch rocket, and it took 21 days to reach final lunar orbit. ISRO's telemetry, tracking and command network (ISTRAC) at Peenya in Bangalore, will track and control Chandrayaan-1 over the next two years of its life span.
Chandrayaan-1 was sent to the Moon in a series of orbit-increasing manoeuvres around Earth instead of a direct shot to the Moon. At launch the spacecraft was inserted into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) with an apogee of 22,860 km and a perigee of 255 km. The apogee was increased with a series of five orbit burns conducted over a period of 13 days after launch
Chandrayaan-1 successfully completed the lunar orbit insertion operation on 8th Nov 2008 at 16:51 IST. This manoeuvre involved firing of the liquid engine for 817 seconds (about thirteen and half minutes) when the spacecraft passed within 500 km from the Moon. The satellite was placed in an elliptical orbit that passed over the polar regions of the Moon, with 7502 km aposelene (point farthest away from the Moon) and 504 km periselene (nearest to the Moon). The orbital period was estimated to be around 11 hours. With the successful completion of this operation, India became the fifth nation to put a vehicle in lunar orbit.

No comments:

Post a Comment