India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 on Sunday entered deep space after crossing 150,000 km from the earth on way to the moon, a space agency official said.
"Chandrayaan entered deep space after its third orbit-raising manoeuvre was completed earlier in the day. The exercise involved firing its 440 Newton liquid engine, lasting 9.5 minutes," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S Satish said in Bangalore.
Following the exercise, the spacecraft is in a higher elliptical orbit, cruising at a 164,600-km apogee (farthest point from earth) and a 348-km perigee (nearest point to earth), taking 73 hours to go around the earth once.
"Antennas of the Deep Space Network at Byalalu (40 km from Bangalore) are tracking and communicating with Chandrayaan-1 in such a high orbit. The spacecraft performance is normal," Satish pointed out.
"The signals from the spacecraft are strong and everything is progressing as expected," S K Shivakumar, director ISRO Telmetry, Tracking and Command Network, said in Chennai.
"Antennas of the Deep Space Network at Byalalu (40 km from Bangalore) are tracking and communicating with Chandrayaan-1 in such a high orbit. The spacecraft performance is normal," Satish pointed out.
"The signals from the spacecraft are strong and everything is progressing as expected," S K Shivakumar, director ISRO Telmetry, Tracking and Command Network, said in Chennai.
