A Press Meet was organised today (August 20, 2019) at ISRO Headquarters, Bengaluru on the occasion of Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) of Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. Dr K Sivan, Chairman, ISRO addressed and interacted with several regional, national and international media persons during the meet. The live telecast of this meet was made available on ISRO website and Youtube Channel. In his briefing, Dr. Sivan announced that “The LOI manoeuvre was performed successfully today morning using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of about 29 minutes. This manoeuvre precisely injected Chandrayaan-2 into an orbit around the Moon.” He emphasised the unique requirement of 90 degree orbital inclination of Chandrayaan-2 and said that it was achieved by the precise execution of both the Trans Lunar Injection (performed on August 14, 2019) and today’s LOI manoeuvre. “The satellite is currently located in a lunar orbit with a distance of about 114 km at perilune (nearest point to the Moon) and 18,072 km at apolune (farthest point to the Moon)”, he added. Further, Dr Sivan added that till September 01, 2019, a series of four orbit manoeuvres will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon’s surface. Subsequently, on September 02, 2019 the Vikram lander will separate from the Orbiter. Following this, orbit manoeuvres will be performed on Vikram to place it in a 100 km X 30 km orbit around the Moon. Following this, Vikram will perform a series of complex braking manoeuvres to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N on September 7, 2019. A few hours later, the Rover Pragyaan will roll down from Vikram and will perform in situ exploration of the surrounding lunar surface. The briefing by Chairman, ISRO was followed by a long interactive session with the media during which questions were asked about the scientific objectives of the Chandrayaan-2 mission, challenges and complexities involved during Vikram separation from Orbiter and its soft landing on the Moon, impact of lunar dust on landing and the release of images captured by Chandrayaan-2, mission life of Pragyaan. Chairman, ISRO answered these questions in detail.
Source: https://www.ISRO.gov.in/
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