The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) got more than what it bargained for on Monday, after the Chandrayaan-2 mission lifted off successfully at 2.43 p.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, on its second attempt to place the satellite at an orbit 6,000 km more than what was intended.
It seemed as if one was watching a nail-biting sports match as the cheers grew louder every time each of the launch objectives was achieved. The GSLV-MkIII-M1 rose into the cloudy skies with bright orange plumes and its engines let out the traditional roar associated with the vehicle, before vanishing behind the clouds, the scene playing out almost to a T like the Chandrayaan-1 launch in 2008.
Roughly 16 minutes and 33 seconds after the lift-off from the second launch pad, Chandrayaan-2 was separated into its orbit with a ‘bonus altitude’ of 6,000 km; 18 minutes and 30 seconds later, Mission Control received the first signal from the satellite in orbit, sending everyone into raptures. Throughout the period, everyone at the Mission Control kept a close watch on the proceedings and every successful performance stage of the rocket was given a thunderous applause.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared this photograph of him watching Chandrayaan-2 launch | Photo Credit: Twitter/NarendraModi
“The GSLV-Mark III vehicle has successfully injected Chandrayaan-2 in the defined orbit. In fact, the orbit is 6,000 km more than what was intended. The satellite will have more life, more fuel and more time to play with manoeuvres. It is the beginning of a historical journey of India towards the Moon and to land at a place near South Pole to carry out scientific experiments to explore unexplored [areas],” ISRO Chairman K. Sivan said from the Mission Control after the launch. In fact, the GSLV performed 15% better than the previous launch, he pointed out.
“Having injected the satellite in the intended orbit, whatever the satellite team wanted to do tomorrow, the launch vehicle has done it today,” Mr. Sivan said. Over the course of the next one-and-half months, the satellite team will undertake 15 ‘very crucial manoeuvres’.
Lauding everyone associated with the project, he said ISRO had fixed the ‘serious technical snag’ that led to the abortion of the launch last week and “now ISRO bounced back with flying colours”. The snag was observed in an intelligent way and the work done in the following 24 hours was “mind boggling”, and the vehicle was brought back to normal quickly.
Mr. Sivan said a series of required tests were conducted in the the next one-and-half days and the vehicle was handed over to the team for the launch. He also complimented the satellite team for literally burning the midnight oil to get the satellite ready for launch.
‘15 minutes of terror’
The successful placing of the satellite in the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) is only the first step in a very complex operation. With ISRO tweaking the duration of the Earth-bound Phase and the Lunar-bound phase, it aims to soft-land the Lander and the Rover on the Moon’s surface on September 7, a day later than what was initially planned.
On the day of landing, ISRO would experience ’15 minutes of terror’ as a powered descent of the Lander-Rover duo would be executed. “On the landing day, we are going to experience 15 minutes of terror to ensure landing is safely near South Pole,” Mr. Sivan said.
The duo was expected to be soft-landed at the high plain between craters Manzinus C and Simpelius N that would be at a point facing the Earth and would have started receiving sunlight by the September 6-7 window, enabling the solar powered rover and lander to work for a period of 14 Earth days.