BANGALORE,
India - India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has successfully tested a vital camera
and performed an orbit-raising maneuver that puts it on course to reach the moon
by this weekend.
The
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said Tuesday that Chandrayaan-1, the
country's first-ever
moon probe, entered its lunar transfer trajectory after a fifth and final
orbit-raising maneuver carried out early that day. During the maneuver, the
spacecraft's rocket engine fired for about 150 seconds, raising its apogee to
about 236,121 miles (380,000 km) - the moon's average distance from
Earth.
"Chandrayaan-1
will approach the moon on November 8, 2008, and the spacecraft's liquid engine
will be fired again to insert the spacecraft into lunar orbit," ISRO
officials said. All systems onboard
the spacecraft are performing normally, they added.
The 3,042-pound (1,380-kg) Chandrayaan-1 has already beamed back the first images
from the Terrain Mapping Camera it will use to map the lunar surface.
ISRO
officials unveiled some of the images Friday, revealing a view of Australia from
high above Earth. The camera, to be used to map the lunar surface with a ground
resolution of 16.4 feet (5 meters), is one of 11 instruments aboard
Chandrayaan-1.
Chandrayaan-1
snapped the photos on Oct. 29, spotting first the northern coast of Australia
from an altitude of about 5,592 miles (9,000 km) at about 8:00 a.m. Local Time in India.
About 4 1/2 hours later, the probe caught country's southern coast from a
height of 43,495 miles (70,000 km).
India
launched the $87 million Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft toward the moon on
Oct. 22. The lunar orbiter includes a 64-pound (29-kg) impact probe,
which it will release to crash
into the lunar surface, and carries five Indian instruments and six others
provided by the U.S., Britain, Sweden, Germany and Bulgaria.
Chandrayaan-1
will join Japan's
Kaguya orbiter and China's Chang'e 1 spacecraft at the moon when it arrives
in lunar orbit this weekend. The Japanese and Chinese probes launched in 2007.
NASA plans to launch its next moon probe, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, in
Spring 2009.
SPACE.com staff contributed to this report from New York City.
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