Chandrayaan-1 - 8-Nov-2008 5:15pm

At 6:45am EST my cell phone rang shrilly; it was my brother-in-law. By the time I rubbed the sleep from my eyes the phone ran once again; persistence meant this was something really important... I answered... and got he wonderful news!!

"Congratulations sweetheart!! The Chandrayaan-1 has entered the lunar orbit !! Now it's going round and round the moon!! Wake up !!"... it's very rare that he's been this excited :-)

I was jolted awake. Quickly the laptop was switched on to look for details. But none of the usual website had anything to report. My RSS feed for Chandrayaan was relatively historic news; from earlier in the day :) ISRO, PTI, TOI, Hindu, Khabrein.info.. none have anything to report.

7:14am EST : The WWW spews out the first piece of information on domain-b "Tense 30 minutes for Chandrayaan as it settles into lunar orbit" !! Times of India too has this "Chandrayaan enters tricky lunar orbit". (sic; they don't give new info; simple rehashes of older news)

7:25am EST: Finally NDTV has reported the lunar entry !! "Chandrayaan-1 successfully enters Moon orbit" - It's terse, nothing much, except the internet confirmation of the great event!

Saturday, November 08, 2008 5:25 PM (New Delhi)

India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 successfully entered moon orbit on Saturday.
With this development, India's moon mission has been declared successful.

Chandrayaan-1 successfully entered the lunar space on Tuesday after a fifth and final orbit raising manoeuvre.

It is now expected to orbit 7,500 km X 500 km elliptical around the moon.

Chandrayaan-1 was launched from the spaceport of Sriharikota on October 22.

7:32 am EST: ========== Finally the ISRO press release is out "Chandrayaan-1 Successfully Enters Lunar Orbit"

• This historic event occurred following the firing of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s liquid engine at 16:51 IST for a duration of 817 seconds. The highly complex ‘lunar orbit insertion manoeuvre’ was performed from Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network at Bangalore.

• The spacecraft is now orbiting the moon in an elliptical orbit that passes over the polar regions of the moon. The nearest point of this orbit (periselene) lies at a distance of about 504 km from the moon’s surface while the farthest point (aposelene) lies at about 7502 km. Chandrayaan-1 takes about 11 hours to go round the moon once in this orbit.

• With today’s successful manoeuvre, India becomes the fifth country to send a spacecraft to Moon. The other countries, which have sent spacecraft to Moon, are the United States, former Soviet Union, Japan and China. Besides, the European Space Agency (ESA), a consortium of 17 countries, has also sent a spacecraft to moon.

Yipppeee !!! Or like bro-in-law said "Hip Hip Hurray !!" India, I salute you !!