By IANS,
Bangalore, Nov 8 (IANS) Chandrayaan-1, India’s first unmanned mission to moon, has travelled more than 380,000 km in 12 days after its launch from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh Oct 22 to enter the lunar orbit Saturday.
Soon after the launch at 6.22 a.m. on Oct 22, the spacecraft carrying 11 scientific payloads was put in an orbit of 22,860 km apogee (farthest point to the earth) and 225 km perigee (nearest point to the earth).
This is how Chandrayaan reached the lunar orbit:
Oct 23, first orbit raising exercise: apogee 37,900 km, perigee 305 km, 11 hours to go around the earth.
Oct 25: apogee 74,715 km, perigee 336 km. 25 and a half hours to orbit the earth.
Oct 26: apogee 164,600 km, perigee 348 km. Enters Deep Space. Takes 73 hours to go around the earth.
Oct 29: apogee 267,000 km, perigee 465 km. Six days to orbit the earth.
Oct 29: The terrain mapping camera successfully tested. First pictures of northern coast of Australia from a height of 9,000 km and of southern coast from a height of 70,000 km. ISRO says “excellent imagery”.
Nov 4: Moves 380,000 km from earth, just around 4,000 km from moon.
Nov 8: Chandrayaan-1 successfully enters lunar orbit at around 5.15 p.m. and India becomes joins select club of six to send a spacecraft to the moon. The others are the US, former Soviet Union, Japan and China and the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries.