Article Posted on : - May 21, 2009

A file photo of Chandrayaan - 1

NEW DELHI (BNS): The orbit of Chandrayaan – 1, India’s lunar mission, which was at a height of 100 km from the moon since November 2008, has now been raised to 200 km, media reports said.

Chandrayaan – 1 spacecraft launched by PSLV-C11 on October 22, 2008, was inserted into lunar orbit on November 8.

According to a release from the Indian Space Research Organistaion (ISRO), manoeuvres to raise the orbit were performed between 0900 hrs to 1000 hrs on Tuesday.

Chandrayaan – 1 going round the moon in this higher orbit will facilitate further studies of orbit perturbations and gravitation field variations of the moon, and imaging a wider swath of the lunar surface.

Over the past seven month, all the 11 payloads on board the spacecraft were successfully put into operation and data of excellent quality were obtained, it said, adding, scientists from India and international agencies were analysing the data, and several interesting results were obtained.

The scientific data is being archived and disseminated from the Indian Space Science Data Centre at Byalalu, near Bangalore.

The spacecraft operations are being performed at the Satellite Control Centre of the ISRO telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore and the Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu.