Face of Nation : The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has released the first set of pictures of Earth captured by Chandrayaan-2 Vikram Lander. The images were released on Sunday by ISRO on microblogging site Twitter.
Earth has been beautifully captured in the pictures by Chandrayaan-2 LI4 camera. They pictures were taken on Saturday. Chandrayaan-2 had successfully carried out the fourth Earth bound orbit-raising manoeuvre for its lunar mission two days back.
ISRO had said in a statement, “Fourth earth bound orbit-raising manoeuvre for Chandryaan-2 spacecraft has been performed successfully today (August 2, 2019) at 1527 hrs (IST) as planned, using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of 646 seconds. The orbit achieved is 277 x 89472 km. All spacecraft parameters are normal.”
ISRO’s ambitious second unmanned Moon mission was put into motion on July 22, when the Chandrayaan 2 was injected into an elliptical orbit of 170×45,475 km by India’s heavy-lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) in a textbook style.
The spacecraft Chandrayaan 2 comprises of three segments — the Orbiter (weighing 2,379 kg, eight payloads), the lander ‘Vikram’ (1,471 kg, four payloads) and rover ‘Pragyan’ (27 kg, two payloads). Chandrayaan 2 is scheduled to reach the Moon by August 20 and land on its surface on September 7. According to ISRO, the lander Vikram will land on the Moon on September 7.
