India's historic lunar mission's propulsion module has returned to Earth orbit.

 

According to India's space agency, the propulsion module that propelled the country's spacecraft to a historic moon landing has just returned to Earth's orbit. The purpose of the action is to evaluate how the developing space power may eventually retrieve lunar soil samples.

The propulsion module's fuel reserve exceeded the expectations of ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organisation. Thus, the agency said on Monday that researchers had chosen to proceed with their efforts to return the module to its home base And now the module is back in orbit around the Earth.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission's lunar lander had been powered by the propulsion module, a big box-shaped device with an engine mounted to its bottom and a solar panel attached, during a significant portion of the spacecraft's journey to the moon following the spacecraft's mid-July launch.

Three weeks after entering lunar orbit, the lander isolated from the propulsion module and touched down on August 23, making India the fourth nation to accomplish this kind of achievement. Previously, exclusively the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union have managed to achieve this.

India's historic lunar mission's propulsion module has returned to Earth orbit: 

The Chandrayaan-3 mission's Propulsion Module (PM), which carried the Vikram lander to within 100 kilometers of the Moon's surface before detaching, was just successfully launched by scientists. 
An effective return to Earth orbit after a controlled drop to the lunar surface marked this momentous occasion.

The Vikram lander, together with Pragyan, a six-wheeled rover it launched, completed nearly two weeks of science research efforts as part of the mission before retiring for the lunar night—a two-week period during which the moon is dark and no sunlight falls on it. Following the failure of earlier attempts to rouse the vehicles, both the lander and the rover have remained in deep sleep on the moon. The mission, which India's space agency declared to be 100% successful, would have been enhanced if the vehicles had reawakened.

The propulsion module stayed in lunar orbit in the meantime. Sending data from the lander back to Earth, the component functioned as a relay station. The only scientific instrument named "SHAPE" or Spectro Polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth was, mounted on the propulsion module, doing experimental studies of the earth's atmosphere.

Extended mission for Chandrayaan

The SHAPE experiment was meant to view Earth from lunar orbit, capturing the properties of our home planet that make it suitable for living for humans in near-infrared light. The study was designed to provide scientists with a template for searching for comparable qualities — known as "biosignatures" — elsewhere in the entire universe.

The SHAPE experiment was supposed to run for three months as the propulsion module continued to whirr around lunar orbit.

The propulsion module, however, was left with more propellant than predicted since the rocket that launched the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft delivered it to such a precise orbit. The project "resulted in the availability of over 100 kg (220 pounds) of fuel in the (propulsion module, or PM) after over one month of operations in the lunar orbit," according to the Space Agency. "It was decided to use the available fuel in the PM to derive additional information for future lunar missions and demonstrate the mission operation strategies for a sample return mission." - ISRO

The propulsion module is returned to earth orbit with newly calculated lunar gravity assist maneuvers which further lower its fuel consumption.

The propulsion module is presently 96,000 miles (154,000 km) above Earth, where it will circle the globe once every 13 days.

The space agency stated in a statement that the propulsion module's journey return to Earth was planned to account for "collision avoidance such as preventing the PM from crashing on the Moon's surface or entering the Earth's GEO belt at 36000 km and orbits below that."

GEO, or geostationary orbit, is a region of space filled by enormous, costly satellites that supply people on Earth with television and other communications services.

Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO is proposedly planning its next lunar mission "Chandrayaan 4" at around 2026