Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft’s Orbit Raised

October 23, 2008

The first orbit-raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was performed at 09:00 hrs Indian Standard Time (IST) this morning (October 23, 2008) when the spacecraft’s 440 Newton Liquid Engine was fired for about 18 minutes by commanding the spacecraft from Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Peenya, Bangalore.

With this engine firing, Chandrayaan-1’s apogee has been raised to 37,900 km, while its perigee has been raised a little, to 305 km. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft takes about 11 hours to go round the Earth once.

Chandrayaan-1, India’s first spacecraft to Moon, was successfully launched by PSLV-C11 yesterday (October 22, 2008) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. The launch vehicle placed Chandrayaan-1 in an elliptical orbit with a perigee (closest point to the earth) of 255 km and apogee (farthest point to earth) of 22,860 km. In this initial orbit, Chandrayaan-1 orbited the Earth once in about six and a half hours. Following its successful launch, the SCC acquired the first signals and conducted preliminary operations on Chandrayaan-1. The Deep Space Network (DSN) at Bylalu tracked the spacecraft in this orbit and received signals in S and X band and has sent commands to the spacecraft.

All systems onboard the spacecraft are functioning normally. Further orbit raising maneuvers are planned in the coming few days.