India / Chandrayaan-2 has officially gone further than Chandrayaan-1: ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Thursday announced that its Moon mission Chandrayaan-2 has officially crossed the milestone set by its predecessor Chandrayaan-1.

In a tweet, Isro said, "Chandrayaan-2 has officially gone further than its predecessor Chandrayaan 1! What do you think it will find on the Moon?"

Chandrayaan-2 is currently orbiting the Moon. The space agency on Wednesday said that Chandrayaan-2 successfully performed the third lunar-bound orbit manoeuvre for the spacecraft.

All spacecraft parameters were normal, the city-headquartered space agency said after the manoeuvre on the spacecraft that is currently in the lunar orbit for its rendezvous with the Moon.

"Third Lunar bound orbit manoeuvre for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was performed successfully today (August 28, 2019) beginning at 0904 hrs IST, using the onboard propulsion system. The duration of the manoeuvre was 1190 seconds. The orbit achieved is 179 km x 1412 km," Isro said in an update.

There will be three more orbit manoeuvre before the Vikram lander's separation from the Orbiter on September 2 and eventual soft landing in the south polar region of the Moon, planned on September 7.

There are just 11 days to go for the Moon landing of Chandrayaan-2 misson. Following the landing, the rover 'Pragyan' will roll out from lander 'Vikram' and carry out experiments on the lunar surface for a period of one lunar day, which is equal to 14 Earth days.

On Monday, Chandrayaan-2 sent more photos of the Moon. Sharing the pictures, the Isro said in a statement that the photos captured by the lunar spacecraft are those of craters Somerfeld, Kirkwood, Jackson, Mach, Korolev, Mitra, Plaskett, Rozhdestvenskiy and Hermite.

These craters have been named after great scientists, astronomers and physicists.

The space agency said these pictures of the lunar surface were taken on August 23 by the Terrain Mapping Camera-2 of Chandrayaan-2 from an altitude of about 4,375 km.

The first picture of the Moon captured by Chandrayaan-2 was released by Isro on August 22.

Chandrayaan-2, a three-module spacecraft comprising an orbiter, lander and rover, was launched on July 22.