Chandrayaan-2, Indian spacecraft enters the orbit of the moon



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Chandrayaan-2, which means "lunar vehicle" in Sanskrit, entered orbit around midnight, Eastern Time, in a complicated insertion maneuver lasting 29 minutes.

"Our hearts have almost stopped today until the end of his work," Kailasavadivoo Sivan, president of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), told reporters. a press conference.

"But the landing is still the terrifying moment … because it's a phase we're doing for the first time," he added.

If the spacecraft lands successfully, India will be only the fourth country to land smoothly on the moon, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday congratulated ISRO, tweeting: "Best wishes for its outcome."

The probe will then perform a series of maneuvers in orbit, placed in a circular orbit flying over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.

From there, the lander – named Vikram – according to the pioneer of the Indian space program Vikram Sarabhai – will separate from the main ship and should land softly on the surface of the moon, near its south pole.

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ISRO said Tuesday that it expects the landing to take place on 7 September.

A robotic robot named Pragyan (meaning "wisdom") will deploy and spend a lunar day, 14 Earth days, collecting mineral and chemical samples from the moon's surface for remote scientific analysis.

Over the next year, the orbiter will map the lunar surface and study the outside atmosphere of the moon.

The Chandrayaan-2 weighs 3.8 tons and carries 13 payloads. It has three elements: the lunar orbiter, the lander and the mobile, all developed by ISRO.

He took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh State on 22 July.

The launch was originally scheduled for July 15, but it was brutally canceled 56 minutes before takeoff, due to a "technical problem".

CNN's Helen Regan and Manveena Suri contributed to the story.

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