Chandrayaan-2 completes over 9,000 orbits
GS Paper - 3 (Space Technology)
The lander and rover might have crash-landed on the lunar surface, but the Chandrayaan-2 mission itself has just completed 9,000 revolutions around the Moon. The onboard instruments are also functioning nominally, as Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Chairman K Sivan said on 6 September 2021.
What
- At the launch of a two-day Lunar Science Workshop-2021, Sivan said eight payloads onboard the mission’s spacecraft are in functional mode, relaying remote and in-situ observations of the lunar surface from an altitude of 100 km.
- The workshop is to commemorate the spacecraft’s two years around the Moon.
- The space agency is preparing for Chandrayaan-3 to make another go at lunar landing.
- The orbiter from the second mission has generated data that Sivan said was ‘very much encouraging.’
- The Chandrayaan-2 mission featured an Orbiter, Lander and Rover designed to explore the lunar South pole.
- Launched onboard GSLV Mk-III on 22 July 2019, the mission reached the lunar orbit on 20 August 2021.
- The mission went as planned till 6 September 2021, when the lander and rover crash-landed after separating from the orbiter.
