On 1 September, the Chandrayaan 2 composite (the combined orbiter, lander and rover units) completed its final and fifth orbit-lowering maneuver, bringing it to an almost-circular orbit of 119 x 127 km around the moon. Now, today on 2nd September 2019 at 1315 hrs IST, the advanced moon lander ‘Vikram’ successfully separated from India’s moon mission Chandrayaan 2.
Now, the Vikram lander is on the way towards a region n the moon that is little explored till date- the lunar surface. After landing, the Pragyan rover will move down from the Vikram for further research on lunar soil.
ISRO share the news on their Twitter handler. The Tweet reads:
#ISRO
Vikram Lander Successfully separates from #Chandrayaan2 Orbiter today (September 02, 2019) at 1315 hrs IST.For details please visit https://t.co/mSgp79R8YP pic.twitter.com/jP7kIwuZxH
— ISRO (@isro) September 2, 2019
Now, the lander is on the circular path identical to the orbiter, passing over the lunar poles at a distance of roughly 100 km from the surface.
Currently, the lander is located in an orbit of 119 km x 127 km and the Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in its existing orbit.
ISRO noted, “The health of the Orbiter and Lander is being monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Bylalu, near Bengaluru. All the systems of Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter and Lander are healthy.”
Throughout the next couple of days, the Vikram lander will perform two moves to bring itself ever nearer to the Moon. By early September 4 morning, Vikram is expected to get into an orbit that will see it fly over a moon at a height of 36 kilometers at the circle’s closest point and 110 kilometers at the farthest.
On September 7, the Vikram lander will start a 15-minute powered descent, which for the Indian Space Research Organization will be “15 minutes of terror’, to the lunar south pole. With the September 7 landing, India will turn out to be just the fourth nation in the world to land a rover on the Moon and the main country to do as such close to the lunar south pole.