On July 16, researchers from the Indian Space Research Organisation successfully carried out the second manoeuvre to raise the height of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft’s perigee, or closest approach to Earth, in its current elliptical orbit.

However, Sunday’s manoeuvre was less significant than the one on July 15.

According to a source in the Times of India, Chandrayaan-3’s perigee is currently 220 km after around 42 seconds of onboard thruster firing.

The third iteration of ISRO’s lunar exploration programme was successfully launched on July 14 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota with the goal of making a soft landing on the Moon’s unexplored south pole to aid India in accomplishing a remarkable feat.

P Veeramuthuvel, the project director for Chandrayaan-3, had stated on Friday that ISRO would closely monitor and manage the spacecraft from ISTRAC.

“Many critical events are lined up, starting from Earth-bound manoeuvres, insertion into lunar orbit and separation of lander, a set of de-boost manoeuvres, and finally the power descent phase for a soft landing (on the lunar surface),” added Veeramuthuvel.