Saturday, November 8, 2008

Breaking news: Chandrayaan-1 enters lunar orbit

Related: More recent Chandrayaan updates are available.

About 2 hours back, Chandrayaan-1 successfully made the transition from an elliptical earth orbit to an elliptical (& polar) moon orbit.

Now it's down down down (I think in 4 steps) to its final perch of 100 km above the moon in a circular orbit.

There was some degree of nervousness since yesterday. "Experts recall that about 30% of unmanned moon missions of the US & the former Soviet Union failed during LOI [lunar orbit insertion]," says today's Time of India newspaper, Bombay edition, without attributing the statement to any specific experts. This is the first time I've seen reference to others failures before a maneuver; till now, it was all confidence & positive vibes. Hope this event marks a return to former positive self.

What next?

  1. All Chandrayaan posts.
  2. All moon posts, including fiction set on moon. A-rated stories probably won't disappoint. For free fiction, search for "full text" (without quotes). Or browse through all free fiction posts, including stories unrelated to moon.
  3. Subscribe to Variety SF master feed, Chandrayaan feed, or moon posts feed.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

An epic event like this and update is so rare on net...a Shame on Indian media.

I can see more Indians logged on to Cricket sites than any that gives importance to this epic event thats unfolding live...Shame on us Indians...!

And a big CONGRATULATIONS to the ISRO team for helping us swell in pride...

Balaji, Abu Dhabi