Chandrayaan a step away from lunar orbital home

India carried out the penultimate orbit-lowering manoeuvre of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on Tuesday, positioning it on the doorstep of what will be its path around the moon for two years. The craft's liquid motor was fired for about 30 seconds at 6.30 pm to position it in an orbit where it is 255 km from the moon at its farthest and 101 km at its nearest, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) spokesperson S Satish said. Isro has carried out three orbit-lowering moves since the spacecraft entered the lunar orbit on Saturday. The spacecraft, which was launched on October 22, was propelled on its 4,00,000-km voyage to the moon in a number of stages, with its orbit being raised progressively towards the moon by activating its liquid motor. Eventually, it will be placed in a circular orbit 100 km above the lunar surface for the duration of its two-year mission Once positioned in the intended orbit, a moon impact probe, one of the 11 instruments carried by Chandrayaan-1, will be dropped on to the lunar surface in an experiment to gather knowledge for future soft landing missions. The probe is one of five Indian scientific payloads that Chandrayaan-1 is carrying.