The fourth orbit-raising manoeuvre for India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was successfully completed on Thursday, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the spacecraft has now entered a new, higher orbit around the Earth.

Chandrayaan-3 is moved closer to the moon as part of India’s celebration of the International Moon Day in 2023. “ISTRAC/ISRO (ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network), Bengaluru successfully executes the fourth orbit raising manoeuvre (Earth-bound perigee firing),” the ISRO tweeted.

Chandrayaan-3 is now orbiting the Earth in elliptical orbits, progressively increasing the heights of these orbits in preparation for its planned soft landing on the Moon’s surface next month.

Before starting to fly directly towards the moon, the spacecraft is expected to do five of these orbit-raising procedures to constantly ascend into higher and higher orbits. Once there, it would repeat these manoeuvres to gradually reduce its orbit of the moon until it eventually reached a circular orbit around 100 kilometres above the lunar surface. The ultimate descent to the Moon’s surface would occur on August 23 or 24 from this circular orbit.
Instead of going straight to the Moon, Chandrayaan-3 is making a diversion in order to save money on the overall voyage. It would take significantly bigger rockets and enormous amounts of fuel to travel higher into orbit for the four-day direct trip to the Moon. Chandrayaan-3, on the other hand, was launched into a low-Earth orbit and has since been using gravity to gather momentum before using thrusters to accelerate and achieve a higher orbit.

Although significantly less fuel is burned with this procedure, it takes longer to reach the Moon.
On July 25, between 2:00 and 3:30 p.m., the fifth and final orbit-raising manoeuvre in the earth orbit is scheduled, according to the ISRO.