Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft completes over 9,000 orbits around moon, says ISRO

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 Monday.

At the launch of a two-day Lunar Science Workshop-2021 here, 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.

Isro will make available the scientific data from the mission for analysis by academia and institutes. This, as Sivan pointed out, will enable greater participation to bring out more science from the Chandrayaan-2 mission.

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.’

This has been attributed to the hi-tech instruments onboard the orbiter. As A S Kiran Kumar, Chairman of Apex Science Board, Isro said “Chandrayaan-2 has really incorporated many new features in its instruments which are taking the observations carried out on Chandrayaan-1 to a newer and higher level.”

The Chandrayaan-2 mission featured an Orbiter, Lander and Rover designed to explore the lunar South pole. Launched onboard GSLV Mk-III on July 22, 2019, the mission reached the lunar orbit on August 20. The mission went as planned till September 6, when the lander and rover crash-landed after separating from the orbiter.