Remember India's lunar rover from several months ago? Some more news....

[thewayne]

But not about the rover, it's dead, Jim.

It's about the orbiter!

India has returned the orbiter to Earth orbit! Very interesting stuff going on here. The orbiter launched with 1,700 kg of fuel and oxidizer. The controllers discovered that it had about 100 kg left over after achieving its lunar orbit. What to do? Well, how about send it back home!

From the article: "In a surprise announcement made Monday, ISRO announced that it has successfully returned the propulsion module used by the spacecraft into a high orbit around Earth. This experimental phase of the mission, the agency said in a statement, tested key capabilities needed for future lunar missions, including the potential for returning lunar rocks to Earth."

The orbiter has an instrument package and it's going to do some Earth studies sitting in its high orbit.

Good for India!

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/12/india-reveals-that-it-has-returned-lunar-spacecraft-to-earth-orbit/

https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/12/05/1852212/india-reveals-that-it-has-returned-lunar-spacecraft-to-earth-orbit

Comments

[rain_gryphon]

Well, that's technicaly interesting, and undoubtedly fun for the engineers, but in the end, they sacrificed a functioning lunar orbiter by turning it into an earth orbiter. I can't see much to celebrate.

[thewayne]

It wasn't doing much around the moon, and they proved they had the skills to return something to the earth.  With the stated goal of ultimately wanting to return lunar rocks to the Earth, the proof of concept is valuable getting two things done with one mission.

[disneydream06]

WOW, that's very cool news. :)
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

Solid decision for proof-of-concept and working out the kinks of what it would take to get a module to pull the round trip. Useful data all around.