Chandrayaan-2 does over 9,000 orbits around moon: Isro

INDIA'S Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft has finished more than 9,000 orbits around the moon and imaging and scientific instruments on board have been providing excellent data, officials on Monday (6) said.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is holding a two-day Lunar Science Workshop 2021 starting Monday to commemorate the completion of two years of operation of Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft around the lunar orbit.

Isro chairman K Sivan said in his inaugural address that eight payloads on board the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft are conducting remote-sensing and in-situ observations of the moon at around 100 kilometres altitude from the lunar surface.

“Till date, the Chandrayaan-2 has completed more than 9,000 orbits around the moon,” Sivan, who is also the secretary in the department of space (DoS), an agency of the Indian government, said.

According to Isro, data product and science documents were released by Sivan, along with data from Chandrayaan-2 orbiter payloads.

“The science data are being made available for analysis by academia and institutes, for a greater participation to bring out more science from Chandrayaan-2 mission,” the Bangalore-based space agency said.

Sivan said he has reviewed the science results, and found them to be “very much encouraging”.

AS Kiran Kumar, chairman of Isro’s Apex Science Board, said the imaging and scientific instruments on board the Chandrayaan-2 satellite have been providing excellent data.

“Chandrayaan-2 has really incorporated many new features in its instruments which are taking the observations carried out on Chandrayaan-1 to a newer and higher level,” Kumar, a former Isro chairman, said.

Project Director of Chandrayaan-2, Vanitha M, said all the sub-systems of the orbiter were performing well. “We hope that we can get good data from the spacecraft for many more years,” she said.

The two-day workshop, organised by Isro, is being live-streamed on the space agency’s website and Facebook page, for effectively reaching the students, academia and institutes, and to engage the scientific community to analyse Chandrayaan-2 data, a statement from Isro said.