Moon images beamed by Chandrayaan-1

India’s rendezvous with the moon is heading in the right direction.
Following the final orbit raising manoeuvre which has put the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft closer to the moon, the first black and white images of the moon have been beamed by the spacecraft.
The images which can be seen only on the television screens have been transmitted to the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) at Byalalu.
ISRO officials said that the beaming of the images was satisfactory and that it was sent when the spacecraft was propelled for the fifth and final orbit raising manoeuvre.
The Chandrayaan-1 has entered the Lunar Transfer Trajectory with an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of about 380,000 km. Chandrayaan- 1 will approach the moon on November 8 and the spacecraft’s liquid engine will be fired again to insert the spacecraft into lunar orbit.
Earlier this month, the Chandrayaan-1’s camera was tested as the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) onboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft beamed two images capturing the Australia’s Northern and Southern coast.
The Chandrayaan-1 which was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on October 22 has 11 payloads. Apart from the TMC, the other four Indian payloads of Chandrayaan-1 are the Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI), Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI), High Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX) and the Moon Impact Probe (MIP). The other six payloads are from abroad.