BENGALURU: Isro scientists on Tuesday completed another manoeuvre to raise Chandrayaan-3’s orbit further away from Earth. Isro said: “The mission is on schedule. The third orbit-raising manoeuvre (Earth-bound perigee firing) is performed successfully.”
However, details on the current orbit the spacecraft was in or how long the on-board thrusters were fired for and other details were not revealed by the space agency. “The next firing is planned for July 20, 2023, between 2pm and 3pm,” Isro said.
On Sunday, Isro had completed a minor operation — firing the thrusters for about 42 seconds and putting the spacecraft’s perigee (closest point to Earth) “The spacecraft is now in 41,603 km x 226 km orbit,” Isro said more than a day after the manoeuvre was done.
Earlier, scientists had on Saturday completed the first Earth-bound manoeuvre to increase the altitude and took Chandrayaan-3 further away from Earth in its 3.8-lakh-km journey towards Moon.
The operation was carried out to increase Chandrayaan-3’s apogee (farthest point from Earth). It had begun at around 12.05pm as planned and lasted for 11-and-a-half minutes, as TOI had reported earlier. After Saturday’s manoeuvre, “Spacecraft is now in 41,762km X 173km orbit,” Isro had said.
If all goes as planned, scientists will carry out two more operations around Earth, as reported by TOI earlier, on July 20 and 25 to push apogee to around 1-lakh-km before Isro attempts to slingshot the spacecraft towards Moon, in the intervening night of July 31 and August 1.