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Chandrayaan Enters Lunar Orbit

Posted by Soulskill on from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept.

William Robinson writes "After an 18-day journey, Chandrayaan-1, the moon mission of India, has entered Lunar orbit. The maneuver was described as crucial and critical by scientists, who pointed out that at least 30 per cent of similar moon missions had failed at this juncture, resulting in spacecraft lost to outer space. The lunar orbit insertion placed Chandrayaan-1 in an elliptical orbit with its nearest point 400 to 500 kilometers away from the moon, and the farthest, 7,500 kilometers. By November 15, the spacecraft is expected to be orbiting the moon at a distance of 100 kilometers and sending back data and images (the camera was tested with shots looking back at Earth). The Chandrayaan-1 is also scheduled to send a probe to the moon's surface."

2 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Fascinating photos by CruddyBuddy · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Fascinating photos. We don't often get views of the Earth from this altitude, stuck as we are in low earth orbit (ISS - looking at you).

    The size of the craft, at over 1300 kg, is a big honking'* thing. I wonder what kind of tracking systems they are using.

    *Honkin' is a technical term.

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    Any problem can be made unsolvable if there are enough meetings made to discuss it.
  2. Re:Awesome! by jools33 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It would be really cool if they could send back a nice high res picture of one of the old Apollo missions - just to kill of the conspiracy theories once and for all. Although the theorists would no doubt immediately claim them as fakes...