BENGALURU: Isro late on Sunday completed its first Moon-bound manoeuvre, a day after Chandrayaan-3 was guided into an elliptical lunar orbit. The spacecraft’s altitude at Apolune (farthest point from Moon) was reduced from 18,074km to 4,313km

“The spacecraft successfully underwent a planned orbit reduction manoeuvre. The retro-firing of engines brought it closer to the Moon’s surface, now to 170 km x 4313 km.

The next operation to further reduce the orbit is scheduled for August 9, 2023, between 1pm and 2pm,” Isro said.

Since the launch on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 has completed eight major manoeuvres — five Earth-bound manoeuvres between July 15 and 25, which raised its altitude to more than 1.2-lakh-km at Apogee (farthest point from Earth), the trans-lunar injection (TLI) on August 1, which put it in a path towards Moon at an altitude of nearly 3.6-lakh-km, the lunar orbit insertion (LOI) on Saturday and the first lunar-bound manoeuvre.

With the completion of Sunday’s lunar manoeuvre, Isro will be left with three more Moon-bound manoeuvres to progressively reduce the spacecraft’s altitude before it attempts to separate the landing module — Vikram (the lander) and Pragyan (the rover) — from the propulsion module.

Before the landing module breaks away from the propulsion module, the integrated spacecraft will have to achieve a 100km circular orbit from the current elliptical orbit around Moon.

Post lander separation, Vikram, carrying Pragyan inside, will be put in a 100km x 30km orbit around Moon and Isro will attempt to soft-land the lander on the lunar surface, scheduled as on date, for 5.47pm on August 23.

The landing will be achieved through a series of complex braking manoeuvres to soft-land in the South polar region.

Watch India’s moon mission: ISRO releases first images of moon as viewed by Chandrayaan-3