Chandrayaan 2 successfully shifts into Moon’s orbit

• another milestone todayIndia's Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft has successfully entered the Moon's orbit.
• The final maneuver was completed today morning and took 28 minutes to complete.
• The Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft will now begin its two week lunar orbit before finally attempting to land on the Moon's South Pole.

Chandrayaan 2, India’s second mission to Moon, has hit another milestone today as the spacecraft shifted from Earth’s orbit to that of the Moon.



Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) launched Chandrayaan 2 on 22 July 2019.

And, it’s taken the spacecraft 28 days to finally reach a point where the Moon is close enough for it to break away from the Earth’s gravitational pull, which is called the lunar transfer phase.

The maneuver was initiated at 9:00am today morning and took 28 minutes to complete.

To allow itself into Moon’s orbit, Chandrayaan 2 had to slow down by firing its thrusters in the opposite direction from its actual movement, a process called retrofiring.

Once, slow enough, the spacecraft was pulled in my Moon’s sphere of influence and the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) was complete.

Going forward

The toughest part of the Chandrayaan 2 mission is yet to come. The spacecraft will now orbit the Moon for two weeks before attempting its soft landing on the lunar surface.

But, in order to ‘land’ on the moon and not ‘crash’, Chandrayaan 2 needs to cushion its fall. That’s where the thrusters come in. Vikram will perform a series of deboosting procedures to in order to ‘soft land’ on the moon.

These ‘15 minutes of terror’ will make or break the mission with ISRO attempting to land on one of the most cratered regions of the Moon — the South Pole.

See also:
Here’s why it’s going to take 7 weeks for Chandrayaan 2 to reach the Moon

Chandrayaan 2 will give India bragging rights even if it doesn’t find water

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