India’s second moon spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 put into earth orbit on July 22, is scheduled to reach the Moon by August 20, the Indian space agency said on Wednesday.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that thefirst-earth bound orbit raising manoeuvre for Chandryaan-2 was successfullyperformed on Wednesday afternoon by firing the onboard motors for 57 seconds.
The new orbit is 230×45,163 km. The second orbit raisingmanoeuvre is scheduled on July 26, at 1.09 a.m., it added.On July 22, the Chandrayaan-2 was injected intoan elliptical orbit of 170×45,475 km by India’s heavy-lift rocketGeosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) in a textbookstyle.