The Indian Space Research Organisation has confirmed that the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft succesfully entered into Lunar orbit earlier today. According to a tweet by ISRO the Lunar Orbit Insertion maneuver started at 03:32 UTC (09:02 IST, Indian Standard Time).

The orbit achieved is 114 kilometers at perilune and 18,072 kilometers at apolune. In the coming days the spacecraft will circularize its orbit to around 100 kilometers from the Moon’s surface.

#ISRO

Today (August 20, 2019) after the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI), #Chandrayaan2 is now in Lunar orbit. Lander Vikram will soft land on Moon on September 7, 2019 pic.twitter.com/6mS84pP6RD — ISRO (@isro) August 20, 2019

Chandrayaan-2 consists of an orbiter that will observe the Lunar surface and relay communication between Earth and the Vikram Lander, which is designed to execute India’s first soft landing on the Lunar surface. The lander carries with it a 6-wheeled and AI-powered rover named Pragyan.

The landing is scheduled to take place on September 7th and Vikram will touch down near the Lunar south pole where observations have suggested that water ice may be trapped in permanently shadowed craters.

According to Sandya Ramesh Vikram will touch down at 01:55 AM IST (08:25 UTC)

Vikram lander to touch down by 1:55am IST Sept 7 and Pragyan rover to be released by 5:55am IST. Story with updates coming up. #Chandrayaan2 pic.twitter.com/dnlYIwftVg — Sandhya Ramesh (@sandygrains) August 20, 2019

The rover will operate for one Lunar day which is 14 days on Earth.

For more information, visit ISRO’s website on Chandrayaan-2.