Chandrayaan 2 closer to Moon landing as it moves to second orbit: ISRO

New Delhi : The Indian Space Research Organisation on Wednesday revealed that the India's Chandrayaan 2 successfully performed a critical manoeuvre that lasted about 20 minutes as it moved more close to the Moon.

The Chandrayaan 2 had entered the moon's orbit on Tuesday. The next manoeuvre in the lunar orbit is on August 28, ISRO said.

"Second Lunar bound orbit manoeuvre for Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft was performed successfully today," ISRO tweeted.

The space agency confirmed that all the parameters of the craft are normal. 

The biggest challenge for the Chandrayaan 2 will be on September 7 when it will try to land on the south pole of the Moon. Tuesday's insertion into the lunar orbit was tricky because if the satellite had approached the moon at a higher velocity, it would have bounced off and got lost in deep space. And had it approached at a slow velocity, the moon's gravity would have pulled it towards it, causing a crash.

"Our hearts stopped for 30 minutes till the job was done," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Dr K Sivan said during a media briefing on Tuesday.

The process of landing Chandrayaan 2 on the moon is very complex since it blasted off at a velocity of 39,240 kilometres per hour, which is almost 30 times the speed at which sound travels through air.