{"id":12998,"date":"2019-08-20T23:37:35","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T15:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chandrayaan-2-arrives-in-lunar-orbit-targets-moon-landing-next-month\/"},"modified":"2019-08-20T23:37:35","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T15:37:35","slug":"chandrayaan-2-arrives-in-lunar-orbit-targets-moon-landing-next-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chandrayaan-2-arrives-in-lunar-orbit-targets-moon-landing-next-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Chandrayaan 2 arrives in lunar orbit, targets moon landing next month"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artist\u2019s illustration of the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft, including the lander and orbiter, at the moon. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

India\u2019s Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft braked into orbit around the moon Tuesday, positioning the robotic science mission for a landing in the moon\u2019s south pole region Sept. 6.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft ignited its main engine at 0332 GMT Tuesday (11:32 p.m. EDT Monday) and fired for 29 minutes to reduce the the probe\u2019s velocity by more than 600 mph (300 meters per second), allowing the moon\u2019s gravity to capture Chandrayaan 2 into orbit.<\/p>\n

The make-or-break rocket burn sets up Chandrayaan 2 for a series of burns to adjust its orbit over the next two weeks before the separation of the mission\u2019s orbiter and lander elements Sept. 2, ahead of the lander\u2019s final descent maneuver.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, the Chandrayaan 2 mission crossed a major milestone,\u201d said K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, India\u2019s space agency.<\/p>\n

Sivan said the 29-minute engine firing Tuesday \u201cprecisely injected\u201d the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft into the planned orbit around the moon.<\/p>\n

Chandrayaan 2 became the second Indian spacecraft to orbit the moon after India\u2019s Chandrayaan 1 orbiter, which arrived in 2008 and made history by detecting water-bearing molecules at the lunar poles, with the highest concentrations inside permanently-shadowed craters at the south pole.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s lunar orbit insertion maneuver placed the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft in an elliptical orbit around the moon, with an altitude ranging from 70 miles (114 kilometers) at its lowest point, to a high point of 11,229 miles (18,072 kilometers), according to ISRO.<\/p>\n

If Tuesday\u2019s burn was unsuccessful, Chandrayaan 2 would have missed the moon and the mission would have been lost, Sivan said.<\/p>\n

Less than half of the attempts to land on the moon since the dawn of the Space Age have been successful, and the $142 million Chandrayaan 2 mission will be India\u2019s first try.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we got a successful lunar orbit insertion today, still the landing is a terrifying moment,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cUntil now, (many of) our lunar lander systems have not operated, especially the propulsion system. That will come only after the 2nd (of September). Only then we will know.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a phase we are doing for the first time,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cWhereas today\u2019s lunar orbit insertion \u2026 we\u2019ve already done that once.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Sivan said he is confident Chandrayaan 2 will safely land.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne good thing is we are learning from their failures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the confidence in this landing mission,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cWe are confident because we have enough testing, enough simulations. All the subsystem- and system-level, sensor-level, thruster-level, all the simulations here are done. We are confident that anything humanly possible, we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

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K. Sivan, ISRO\u2019s chairman, displays a model of the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft during a press conference Tuesday. Credit: ISRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chandrayaan 2 launched July 22 aboard India\u2019s largest rocket, the GSLV Mk.3, into an egg-shaped orbit around Earth.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft gradually boosted its orbit to higher latitudes with a series of five engine burns, culminating with a trans-lunar injection maneuver Aug. 13 (GMT) to place Chandrayaan 2 on a trajectory to intercept the moon.<\/p>\n

With Chandrayaan 2 now in a stable orbit around the moon, ISRO ground teams will oversee a further sequence of burns using the orbiter\u2019s propulsion system to guide the spacecraft into a circular 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) orbit. The lunar orbit maneuvers will begin with an engine firing Wednesday, followed by additional firings Aug. 28, Aug. 30 and Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next major event happens on the 2nd of September, when the lander will be separated from the orbiter,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cUntil now, the entire operations are carried out by the propulsion systems from the orbiter. From Sept. 2 onwards, the entire attention will be on the lander.\u201d<\/p>\n

The landing module is named Vikram for Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India\u2019s space program, and after touchdown will deploy the Pragyan rover, named for the Sanskrit word for \u201cwisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

After separating from the orbiter, the Vikram lander will conduct a test burn of its propulsion system Sept. 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter confirming the normalcy of the system, then on the 4th of September, we will be doing the real deorbit maneuver for the lander for about 6.5 seconds,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cIn that maneuver, the lander will be put into an orbit with 35 kilometers (21 miles) perilune and about 97 kilometers (60 miles) apolune.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the next (few) days, we\u2019ll be checking the various parameters of the lander to ensure everything is right,\u201d Sivan said.<\/p>\n

The final 15-minute powered descent sequence will set up for touchdown in an ancient polar highlands region between two craters at approximately 70.9 degrees south latitude, and 22.8 degrees east longitude, closer to the moon\u2019s south pole than any previous mission.<\/p>\n

Five throttleable liquid-fueled engines will control the lander\u2019s rate of descent, and a laser rangefinder will guide the spacecraft toward the landing zone. After the start of the powered descent phase, the entire landing sequence will be autonomous, without input from ground controllers.<\/p>\n

Landing is scheduled for around 2025 GMT (4:25 p.m. EDT) on Sept. 6, according to Sivan.<\/p>\n

The 59-pound (27-kilogram) Pragyan rover is expected to drive off the lander around four hours after touchdown to begin driving across the lunar surface. Pragyan carries a suite of instruments to study the composition of rocks and soil at the landing site.<\/p>\n

The Vikram lander, meanwhile, will take panoramic images, measure seismic activity and extend a probe to a depth of up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) to collect data on underground thermal conductivity. A NASA-provided laser retroreflector is also flying on the Vikram lander.<\/p>\n

Chandrayaan 2\u2019s stationary lander and rover are designed to last at least 14 days \u2014 equivalent to half of a lunar day \u2014 until the sun sets at the landing site, robbing the vehicles of electrical power as temperatures plummet to near minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 183 degrees Celsius).<\/p>\n

Sivan said Tuesday that the frigid temperatures could damage sensitive components inside the lander and rover.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that temperature, we are qualified, but I cannot give confidence to you (that the spacecraft will survive,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cIt may happen. It may not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Chandrayaan 2\u2019s landing is successful, India will become the fourth nation to accomplish a controlled soft touchdown on the moon, following landings by the Soviet Union, the United States and China.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter will conduct its own scientific observations over a mission scheduled to last at least one year. The orbiter will take high-resolution images and scan the lunar surface with radar and spectral imagers to hunt for signs of water ice.<\/p>\n

Reservoirs of frozen water on the moon could be converted into rocket fuel and other supplies for a lunar base.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Artemis program aims to land a two-person crew near the moon\u2019s south pole by 2024, and Sivan said findings by missions like Chandrayaan 2 will provide important data for teams planning a human anding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are are going to land near the south pole, and Artemis is also going to land a man near the south pole,\u201d Sivan said. \u201cI\u2019m sure that this will give a lot of input to them, but what input it will give, don\u2019t ask me now. After the science, I can tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s illustration of the Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft, including the lander and orbiter, at the moon. Credit: ISRO India\u2019s Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft braked into orbit around the moon Tuesday, positioning the robotic science mission for a landing in the moon\u2019s south pole region Sept. 6. The spacecraft ignited its main engine at 0332 GMT Tuesday (11:32 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2442,301,525,625,1561,1563],"class_list":["post-12998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-chandrayaan-2","tag-india","tag-isro","tag-moon","tag-planetary-science","tag-solar-system"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}