An Indian lunar orbiter avoided a collision with another South Korean one

Nov. 20 () –

The Indian lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-2 carried out a maneuver in September to avoid a close approach to the South Korean Danuri spacecraft.

A recent report of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), explained that the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter raised its orbit on September 19 to avoid a close approach to Danuri, which was expected to occur two weeks later if the trajectory of the Chandrayaan-2 It didn’t change. The report noted that a subsequent maneuver, which took place on October 1, also helped Chandrayaan-2 avoid possible collisions with other orbiters around the moon, including NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

Chandrayaan-2, Danuri and LRO share a near-polar lunar orbitso spacecraft approach each other over the lunar poles, where the risk of collision is very high, Space.com reports.

In 2021, Chandrayaan-2 changed its orbit to avoid a planned approach to LRO over the moon’s north pole. Without the maneuver, the two spacecraft would have passed each other just 3 kilometers apart, ISRO said.

Danuri has maneuvered at least three times since entering lunar orbit in December 2022: once to avoid LRO and once to avoid Chandrayaan-2 and evade Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft shortly before the landing of the latter on the near side of the moon in January, SpaceNews reported.

There is currently no international protocol to resolve collision risks. The three space agencies – NASA, KARI and ISRO – voluntarily share data through email exchanges and teleconferences on the trajectories of their spaceships.

“Sometimes, We did not have the contact information of the responsible personneland network security issues occasionally prevented email exchanges,” according to a presentation of the Korea Aerospace Administration at the UN committee meeting in June. “However, we ultimately resolved all collision risks through collaborative discussions.”

Space agencies primarily use a platform built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory called MADCAP that calculates the risk of collisions and generates warnings.

However, “at this time, no There is no mutually agreed upon international consultation mechanism or protocol to resolve such collision risks.“Soyoung Chung, senior researcher at KARI’s strategy and planning directorate, said at a space sustainability summit earlier this year, according to SpaceNews.