Chandrayaan 2 Update: Chandrayaan-2 has shot an image of the Moon from a height of over 2,000 kilometers as it flies around the satellite, preparing to land a rover on the lunar surface. The photo of the Moon was shot by Vikram, which is Chandrayaan-2’s lander. ISRO’s lunar probe has sent the first image of the Moon.
Chandrayaan 2 entered the Moon’s orbit on August 20, after a crucial maneuver. The maneuver was carried out on Tuesday and it successfully moved the spacecraft into the lunar orbit from the Lunar transfer trajectory. The probe has also undergone its second Moon-bound orbital maneuver on Wednesday, August 21.
Chandrayaan 2 Update:
- Chandrayaan-2 is currently orbiting around the Moon
- Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to land a rover on the Moon
- Only three countries have landed rovers on the Moon
Chandrayaan 2 earlier shared images of the Earth from space which were quite incredible too. The spacecraft has been launched by ISRO to explore the possibility of water on the Moon as suggested by the findings of Chandrayaan 1. The image that was uploaded by ISRO on their official Twitter account looked amazing and shows the lunar surface very clearly.
ISRO while sharing the picture on Twitter gave some information related to it. The space agency wrote “Take a look at the first Moon image captured by the Vikram Lander of Chandrayaan 2. The image was taken at a height of about 2,650 km from Lunar surface on August 21, 2019. The agency in the picture has identified the two prominent lunar sites of significance. ‘Mare Orientale basin’ and ‘Apollo craters’ are identified in the picture.
The next maneuver of the spacecraft is scheduled to be carried out on August 28. The Chandrayaan 2 will undergo its 3rd Moon-bound orbital maneuver on this day in order to place itself over the Lunar poles. The spacecraft is scheduled to land in a totally uncharted territory of the Moon. The South Polar region of the Moon is significant as it is the dark side of the Moon and is totally unexplored.
The Chandrayaan-2 mission’s D-Day is September 2, when the lander Vikram will separate from the spacecraft and get into a lunar orbit of its own.
Early morning on September 7, Vikram will begin a 15-minute powered descent at the end of which it will land near the south pole of the Moon, making India the only country in the world to perform a ‘soft landing’ near the lunar south pole.
Chandrayaan-2 will make India only the fourth could in the world to land a rover on the Moon. Among the experiments, the ambitious mission will carry out include tests to determine the extent of water presence on the Moon.
