The space program of India is on a high right now. With the recent success of the Mars mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) called Mangalyaan. ISRO has undertaken a second Moon mission called Chandrayaan-2. ISRO‘s heavy lift rocket – the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-Mk III) – carried the 3,850 kg Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. It blast off from the Sriharikota spaceport on July 22. At exactly 2.43PM, the Rs 375 crore GSLV-Mk III rocket began its ascent into space from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC). And today, August 4, ISRO took to micro-blogging platform Twitter and shared the first pictures of Earth captured by the LI4 camera installed in Chandrayaan-2.
In a series of tweets along with the images of Earth from space, ISRO said, “#ISRO First set of beautiful images of the Earth captured by #Chandrayaan2 #VikramLander. Earth as viewed by #Chandrayaan2 LI4 Camera on August 3, 2019 17:28 UT.” Isro subsequently tweeted more images of the Earth clicked at 17:29, 17:32, 17:34 and 17:37 UT.
#ISRO
First set of beautiful images of the Earth captured by #Chandrayaan2 #VikramLander
Earth as viewed by #Chandrayaan2 LI4 Camera on August 3, 2019 17:28 UT pic.twitter.com/pLIgHHfg8I— ISRO (@isro) August 4, 2019
Earlier on Friday, the fourth orbit raising activity for India’s moon spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 was performed successfully at 3.27 p.m., the ISRO said. The Indian space agency said the orbit of the Chandrayaan-2 was raised to 277×89,472 km by firing the onboard motors for 646 seconds. All spacecraft parameters are normal, it said. The fifth orbit raising manoeuvre is scheduled between 2.30 p.m. and 3.30 p.m. on August 6. On July 22, the Chandrayaan-2 was injected into an elliptical orbit of 170×45,475 km by India’s heavy lift rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV Mk III) in a text book style. The spacecraft comprises three segments — the Orbiter (weighing 2,379 kg, eight payloads), the lander ‘Vikram’ (1,471 kg, four payloads) and rover ‘Pragyan’ (27 kg, two payloads).
WATCH: Rakesh Sharma’s Message from Space to Indira Gandhi
This is the second mission to Moon from India, the first one was called Chandrayaan-1. It was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The first images of the Earth from space by Chandrayaan-2 reminds us of the time when Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to go to space had to say about India from space. He was speaking with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and said that India looked ‘Sare jahan se accha’ (better than the whole world) from outer space.
With inputs from IANS
