On August 5, 2023, the Chandrayaan-3 mission achieved a crucial milestone with the successful completion of the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI).
- The insertion was carried out by retro-burning at the Perilune for 1835 seconds, starting at 19:12 Hrs IST.
- The maneuver resulted in an orbit of 164 km x 18074 km, as intended. Perilune is the point of an elliptical lunar orbit where the distance between the satellite and the Moon is at its minimum.
- This is the third time in succession that ISRO has successfully inserted its spacecraft into the lunar orbit, apart from doing so into the Martian orbit.
- If the rest of the current mission goes to plan, the mission will safely touch down near the Moon’s little-explored south pole between August 23 and 24. Since its launch on July 14, ISRO has been lifting the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into orbits farther and farther away from Earth.
- The Chandrayaan-3 consists of a lander module (LM), a propulsion module (PM) and a rover.
- The PM and LM separation would happen on August 17. A series of deboost manoeuvres is also scheduled to take place before the power descent phase for soft-landing on the moon.
