Collision Avoided! NASA craft almost crashed into India's Chandrayaan 2 moon orbiter
- The lunar orbiter of the Chandrayaan-2 mission was moved from its 100-km circular, polar orbit around the moon to avoid colliding with a NASA craft, ISRO said.
Space research organizations keep on sending human made objects into space in order to know what is happening out in space to something new as well as keep track of what is happening on Earth. But, now there are so many man-made objects floating in space that even the Moon's orbit is becoming cluttered. As per the latest information provided by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the lunar orbiter of the Chandrayaan-2 mission was moved from its 100-km circular, polar orbit in October 2021 to avoid colliding with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
The two orbiters got too close on October 20, 2021 and the close conjunction between both the orbiters was expected to occur at 11:15 am. According to ISRO, “the radial separation between the two spacecraft would be less than 100 meters (328 feet) and the closest approach distance would be only about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles)” at the time, as quoted by futurism.com. Observing the situation, both NASA and ISRO mutually agreed to have their orbiters perform maneuvers to avoid a collision on October 18 at 8:22 pm.
“After orbit determination of CH2O (Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter) with post-manoeuvre tracking data, it was reconfirmed that there would be no further close conjunctions with LRO in the near future with the achieved orbit,” Isro said in a statement, as quoted by hindustantimes.com.
It can be said that it is very important to monitor the objects sent in space in order to avoid any kind of collision as it will not only hamper the mission but will also lead to massive loss of information that these orbiters provide.
The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is said to have a mission life of seven years. It will be used for the upcoming Chandrayaan-3 mission that will carry only the lander and the rover. The lander rover aboard Chandrayaan 2 mission crash-landed on the lunar surface just 2.1 km from its destination on September 7, 2019.
If the lander would have landed successfully then India would have been the fourth country to be able to successfully land the celestial object. The first three countries include the United States, Russia, and China.
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