Lagatar24 Desk
Chennai, Nov.17: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has carried out an evasive manoeuvre for the first time in its space exploration mission to avoid a collision between Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter and the US’ Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). On October 20, 2021, at the Lunar North Pole, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) LRA are expected to come quite close to each other, according to ISRO.
According to ISRO and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) calculations, the radial separation between the two spacecraft on October 20, 2021, at 11.15 a.m. Indian time, was less than 100 m and the closest approach distance would have been less than three kilometres.
ISRO and NASA decided that the scenario necessitated a collision avoidance manoeuvre, and the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter was shifted away on October 18, 2021, providing a suitably high radial separation at the next closest approach between the two spacecraft.
According to ISRO, after orbit determination of Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter post-manoeuvre tracking data, it was determined that there would be no further close conjunctions with LRO with the attained orbit in the foreseeable future.
Both orbiters follow a roughly polar orbit around the moon, bringing them close to each other over the lunar poles.
For the past two years, the Indian Orbiter has been orbiting the moon.
Collision avoidance manoeuvres are routinely performed by satellites in earth orbit to reduce the possibility of collision with space objects such as space debris and operational spacecraft.
According to Roscosmos, Russia’s official space organisation, India’s 700 kg cartography satellite Cartosat-2F and Russia’s 450 kg Kanopus-V satellite had a near-miss in outer space in 2020.
Both earth monitoring satellites were within 224 metres of one other.
Kanopus is a Russian Space Agency Earth observation mini-satellite project with a launch mass of 450 kg.
