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India joins select club of six to successfully send a spacecraft to the moon
US, Russia, Japan and China and the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries have already done it. India joins the select club to claim a piece of the moon.
Chandrayaan-1 successfully enters lunar orbit at around 5.15 p.m. making history for a budding superpower. India's first unmanned mission to moon, has travelled more than 380,000 km in 12 days after its launch from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh Oct 22.
The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (perilune) lies at a distance of about 504 kms from the moon's surface, while the farthest point (apolune) lies at about 7,502 km.
"For the first time in the history of India, an Indian-made satellite is circling the Moon", a jubilant ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair told Indian media shortly after a home-grown satellite broke away from the Earth's gravitational field for the first time and reaching the moon. India becomes the sixth country to put a satellite in the moon orbit.
The engine was fired when the spacecraft passed at a distance of about 500 km from the moon to reduce its velocity to enable lunar gravity to capture it into an intended orbit around the moon.
TECHNOLOGY ARTICLES
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