Chandrayaan-1 now in lunar transfer trajectory


Earth seen from Chandrayaan-1
 
This image of Earth was taken by ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft while on its way to the Moon on 29 October 2008, at 08:00 CET (12:30 Indian local time). The image was obtained by the Terrain Mapping camera (TMC), one of the 11 instruments on board, and shows the Southern coast of Australia from a height of 70 000 km.

Lunar transfer orbit
 
After launch on 22 October, ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was first injected into a highly elliptical 7-hr orbit around Earth, reaching between 255 km and 22 860 km above our planet. The spacecraft then spiralled outwards in increasingly elongated ellipses around Earth, until it reached its lunar transfer orbit on 4 November at 00:26 CET (04:56 Indian standard time). This transfer orbit’s farthest point from Earth is about 380 000 km.

Earth, from Chandrayaan-1
 
This image of the Earth was taken by ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft while on its way to the Moon on 29 October 2008, at 03:30 CET (08:00 Indian standard time). The image was obtained by the Terrain Mapping camera (TMC), one of the 11 instruments on board, and shows the Northern coast of Australia from a height of 9000 km.



Release date: 15 October 2009