Global News

[ad_1] BENGALURU: Early on Friday, scientists from the Isro Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) implemented the fourth Earth-bound manoeuvre of Aditya-L1 , India’s first solar space observatory mission, that was launched on September 2. Today's manoeuvre happened at 2.15am. The spacecraft is now in an orbit of 256km x 1,21,973km, Isro said, adding that its ground stations in Mauritius, Bengaluru, Sriharikota and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation, while a transportable terminal currently stationed in the Fiji islands for Aditya-L1 will support post-burn operations. A day ahead of the launch, Isro had said that post launch, Aditya-L1 would stay in Earth-bound orbits for 16 days, during which it would undergo five manoeuvres to gain the necessary velocity for its journey. Subsequently, it would undergo a Trans-Lagrangian1 Insertion (TLI) manoeuvre, marking the beginning of its 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point.

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: With Isro's most powerful rocket LVM-3 carrying the Chandrayaan-3 module on its tip standing tall on the launchpad in Sriharikota and the lunarcraft raring to begin its Moon journey next Friday, India is on the cusp of "becoming the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to land on the Moon", space minister Jitendra Singh said. "After a quantum rise in our space expertise, India can no longer wait to be left behind in its march to the Moon," he said. After landing on Moon, the space minister said, the Chandrayaan-3 rover with six wheels will come out of the lander and is expected to work for 14 days on the lunar surface. "With the support of multiple cameras on the rover, we will be able to receive images," Singh said. The space minister said the primary objectives of the Chandrayaan-3 mission are threefold: to demonstrate safe and soft-landing on the lunar surface; to demonstrate rover roving on the Moon; and to cond