Moon project india



moon

Mission Sequence

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft would be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota by PSLV-XL (PSLV-C11) in an highly elliptical initial orbit (IO) with perigee (nearest point to the Earth) of about 257 km and an apogee (farthest point from the Earth) of about 22,858 km.

After a few revolutions in the initial orbit, the spacecraft’s Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) firing would be done, when the spacecraft is near perigee, to raise the apogees to 37,421 km and 73,925 km respectively.

Subsequently, the LAM is fired to take the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to extremely high elliptical orbit with apogees 199,277 km and 269,201 km. Later the spacecraft would be raised to an orbit with 1,019 km perigee and 386,194 km apogee.

Once the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft reaches the vicinity of the Moon, the spacecraft is slowed down sufficiently so as to enable the gravity of the moon capture it into an elliptical orbit (LC). After a careful and detailed observation the height of the spacecraft’s orbit will be finally lowered to its intended 100 km circular polar orbit. Following this, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) would be ejected from Chandrayaan-1 to impact on the lunar surface. Afterwards, all the scientific instruments/payloads are commissioned sequentially and Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft explores the Moon with its array of instruments for two years.