BANGALORE, INDIA: Chandrayaan1, India’s prestigious mission to moon, entered the Lunar Transfer Trajectory with an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of about 380,000 km, with the fifth and final orbit raising manoeuvre, which was successfully carried out at 04:56 am IST on Tuesday morning.

During this manoeuvre, the spacecraft’s 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about two and a half minutes, ISRO sources said.

ISRO said the health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Byalalu.

Since its launch on October 22 by PSLV-C11, all systems onboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft are performing normally.

Chandrayaan-1 will approach the Moon on November 8, 2008 and the spacecraft’s liquid engine will be fired again to insert the spacecraft into lunar orbit.