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Chandrayaan-1 truly home

CHENNAI: Chandrayaan-1 has reached its destination. The Indian spacecraft is now orbiting the moon over its poles at an altitude of about 100 km.

M. Annadurai, Project Director, said on Wednesday evening: “The entire team is very happy that in three weeks from the launch on October 22, we could safely send Chandrayaan-1 to the moon without any hiccups.” The Moon is 3,84,000 km from the Earth.

S.K. Shivakumar, Director, ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bangalore, called it “a fulfilling mission.” “We were given the job of sending a spacecraft to the moon. We have realised the mission.”

The spacecraft reached its final home after commands were radioed at 6.33 p.m. from the Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC), nerve-centre of the current operations at ISTRAC, to Chandrayaan-1’s engine, Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM), to fire.

The engine fired for 58 seconds and Chandrayaan-1’s aposelene (the farthest distance from the moon) was reduced from 255 km to about 100 km.