India’s second successful space mission Chandrayaan-2 has sent down its first spectacularly detailed lunar images soon after entering lunar orbit on 20 August, roughly after six weeks from the delayed lift-off.
The images were captured by the exploration tool, using camera LI-4 at around 1903 hours (IST) at an altitude of 2650 kilometres from the moon’s surface on Wednesday. The frame features two of the most significant landmarks of the moon- the Mare Orientale Basin and the Apollo craters. The Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) subsequently tweeted the development, which read “Take a look at the first Moon image captured by #Chandrayaan2 #VikramLander taken at a height of about 2650 km from the Lunar surface on August 21, 2019.”
Chandrayaan-2 has already completed its first orbital manoeuvre without any glitch. This critical manoeuvre is one among four similar ‘retrofirings’ of the on-board propulsion system that will consequently aim at lowering the orbit of the spacecraft until it is in a 100*100 km circular orbit around the moon. The speculated date for this event is slated for September 1, until which the three components of the spacecraft- the orbital, lander and the rover will be travelling together. The Vikram lander, named to honour the first chief of Indian space organisation will be expectedly making its long-awaited powered descent and landing on 7 September at 0155 hours (IST), which is also nicknamed as the ’15 minutes of terror’. It is by far the most difficult pathway ISRO will be acting on, as the ISRO chief has earlier stated, “The most terrifying and complex step in the entire mission will be the 15-minute descent of Vikram, as we have never undertaken such a complicated mission before.”
Chandrayan-2 will be exploring the moon’s uncharted South Pole region, where Scientists are hopeful that the presence of water and fossil records of an early solar system might be discovered.
