Chandrayaan 2 Beams Back First Set Of Images Of Earth From Space

Chandrayaan-2, India's second attempt to reach the Moon, successfully took off last month. The spacecraft is currently in its planned orbit. Now, a few weeks since its launch, ISRO has shared a few images captured by the Chandrayaan 2. This is the second phase of this space program; the previous one was called off due to a technical snag. The spacecraft has captured the images of earth in high detail.

ISRO took to Twitter to share the first images of Earth captured by the L14 camera installed on the spacecraft. ISRO's tweet reads "#ISRO First set of beautiful images of the Earth captured by #Chandrayaan2 #VikramLander." This was followed by a series of tweets along with the images boasting the success of the moon mission.

Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission Highlights

Previously, ISRO completed the Mars mission with the help of Mangalyaan and had started its Moon Mission back in 2008. The operation was unsuccessful following which the organization started developing the Chandrayaan-2. The heavy lift-rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-MK 11) lifted the spacecraft weighing 3,850Kg from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) on July 22.

The spacecraft compiles three different components - the orbiter, the lander 'Vikram' and rover 'Pragyan' weighing 2,379 kg (eight payloads), 1471 Kg (four payloads), and 27Kg (two payloads) respectively.

The ascent began successfully at 2.43PM and the entire nation witnessed this special event on various platforms. The spacecraft completed its fourth orbit successfully at 3.27 pm on August 2nd. On August 6, the fifth orbit-raising maneuver is expected between 2.30- 3.30 pm IST.